


it's free flavour friday, i'm in love

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: High School, M/M, Mutual Pining, Skateboarding, apologies to anyone with serious knowledge of skateboarding, summer job AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 21:25:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16071647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: “I don'thate old people, Dylan!” Connor exclaims, still bright red, and Dylan waves that away because like, way to miss the point, McDavid.“You hate those old people specifically,” he says and points at Connor when he opens his mouth. “Do you remember getting like way too drunk and crying because you hate being called kiddo? I do.”“Wine coolers get me emotional,” Connor mutters but he's avoiding Dylan's eyes.“You scarred Marner for life,” Dylan reminds him.





	it's free flavour friday, i'm in love

**Author's Note:**

> with apologies also to the following: 
> 
> -ryan nugent-hopkins  
> -mitch marner’s irl family  
> -connor mcdavid’s irl family, conditionally  
> -the leafs
> 
> thank you to moliver and i am sorry for bringing dylan strome into your life
> 
> enjoy xoxo

Dylan is very far from a model employee. 

“Strome,” Store Manager John Tavares sighs at him, which Dylan considers a little bit excessive. He hasn’t even done anything wrong yet. “You have to- this is a service job, you need to actually, y’know, serve?” 

“I am serving,” Dylan tells him and pushes his mop around a little to show how diligent and hard-working he is. He’s got work ethic in like, _spades_. “Serving these good looks.” 

“Strome,” JT repeats. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Seriously, check out all this shit I’m serving up,” Dylan says and attempts a little bit of a spin-o-rama with the mop and a plastic smoothie lid. It gets all the way across the hallway and in through the door to the tiny unisex bathroom, propped open by Dylan’s mop bucket. Dylan is the fucking _Gretzky_ of smoothie hockey. “ _Served_ , bitch!” 

“Get the fuck out there for the last hour of your shift or I’ll fire you, so help me,” JT says, still clutching the bridge of his nose like it’ll save him from Dylan’s presence. Dylan waggles his eyebrows at JT but goes because he is kind of into having a disposable income and shit. JT probably isn’t bluffing about firing him. 

He raps his knuckles against Benn’s ancient Employee of The Month picture in passing, framed and hanging next to the bathroom sign. Salute a real one and all.

-/-

There’s only one skate park in town and it was built in the like, ass end of the 90’s and it sucks huge donkey balls but it’s the only place in town to skate and when Mitch texts him to meet up after his shift he doesn’t even need to specify a location. Dylan loves the place.

“This ramp is for shit,” Dylan says idly and rolls his board back and forth with the heel he has propped on the deck so the trucks rattle over the cracks in the cement. It’s like a billion degrees out and Dylan is sure that he smells like a sweaty box of overripe strawberries, on account of he hadn’t really bothered to shower on his way in and back out of the house to grab his board. 

“Whole park is for shit,” Mitch says. He’s starfished at the bottom of the ramp in a douchey _sun’s out, guns out_ tank, sunglasses hooked into the neck. He looks like a scrawny baby frat boy. Dylan watches him idly and hates him like a lot. “When’s McDavid getting here?” 

“When he fucking gets here, bitch, do you ever shut up?” Dylan asks lazily and Mitch throws a rock at him. “Ow!” 

“You wanna shut your mouth before I shut it for you,” Mitch advises like he’s ever won a single fight in his life, which Dylan knows for positive he hasn’t, because a full eighty percent of those fights had been against himself. He ignores Mitch, anyway, and sprawls back against the hot cement. 

“What would you do,” he asks, and Mitch snorts, “with a million dollars?” 

“Better board,” Mitch says immediately because he is nothing if not a predictable fucker, and then pauses. “Get my own place, probably. You?” 

“Make the world’s biggest pizza,” Dylan says lazily and rolls his board so it goes down the ramp and grins up at the blue, blue sky at the sound of it hitting Mitch and then Mitch cursing at him. It’s barely been a week since the last day of school and it’s already a beautiful summer.

-/-

Gym Brad pushes the Smoothie Shack door open. Dylan has been in love with Gym Brad pretty much since his first day working here two summers ago. Gym Brad is called Gym Brad because his name is Brad and he stops in after a session at the gym every weekend, religiously.

Dylan may not be especially creative when he's thinking with his dick but he is an unfortunate sucker for sweaty, douchey, and muscle-y. Gym Brad likes to wear bro-tanks that show off muscles Dylan like, doesn’t even know the _names_ of and is obscenely hot despite the size of his nose and hair that is, if Dylan is entirely honest, kind of a national tragedy. 

“How _can_ I help you?” he leans against the till to purr. There’s no one else in the store except Freddie, who just rolls his eyes at Dylan anyway, so whatever. 

Gym Brad laughs and rests a hip against the counter. 

“We- _ell_ ,” he drawls slowly. Dylan tries not to melt all over the till while copping a look at Brad’s pecs. It’s not his fault they’re all like out there and shit. “Any specials?” 

“It's Free Flavour Friday,” Dylan says and shrugs. Gym Brad grins at him and Dylan's stomach does an acrobatic flip. 

Freddie carefully adds a spoonful of vanilla yogurt to the blender he's colonized and tosses the spoon in the sink with a clatter. 

“Does he ever talk?” Gym Brad asks, leaning in closer and nodding in Freddie’s direction. Freddie ignores him, steadily feeding a strawberry into his blender. Dylan isn’t entirely sure what he’s making, only that he’s been adding a little fruit at a time for nearly twenty minutes now and the way he’s staring at what he’s making is _scientific_ and shit. 

Dylan props his elbows up on the till and shrugs.

“Lost his vocal cords in a freak yogurt accident,” he says, faux sad. “Big shame, so sad. See anything you like?” 

Freddie snorts. Gym Bread grins and leans in even closer to peer up at the menu board like it says anything he doesn’t already know. He gets the same thing every damn weekend, walking in looking all unfairly sweaty and attractive. 

“My usual, then,” he says and gets out his wallet while Freddie moves to start throwing shit in the other blender. Dylan rings him up and considers trying to look seductively up at Gym Brad through his lashes. He decides not to before he can practice with Mitch. Mitch will tell him if he looks like a tool. Mitch is honest as shit about when Dylan's looking like a tool.

“Wanna add some of that whey protein in it?” Gym Brad asks, like he always does. Dylan manfully refrains from telling him that if he’s looking for protein Dylan’s dick is one hundred percent all-Canadian beef, like _he_ always does. All is right with the world. 

Freddie finally starts his own blender as Brad’s scooping up his Peachy Pineapple Persuasion with Whey Protein Boost and ambling out the door. It comes out a delicate yellowish pink, smooth and even. 

“Freak yogurt accident?” he asks and Dylan grins at him. 

“ _So_ fuckin’ sad,” he says, “you used to sing like a motherfucking angel. Whatcha making?” 

“Try some,” Freddie says and pours him a sampler cup full. “Think I’m gonna call it the Hot for Gym Teacher.” 

“Brad is _not_ a gym teacher,” Dylan insists but takes the cup and sips, leaning back on the till and watching a cloud make its meandering way across the blue sky through the glass of the doors. It’s cold and delicious and tastes like strawberries and cream.

-/-

Technically speaking, by the strictest technicality, if Dylan is totally honest, he does not have a car.

What he _does_ have is an older brother at college that doesn’t want to pay for campus parking, and parents with a lax attitude towards hiding the keys. So, effectively, Dylan sometimes has a car. If Ryan isn’t home and his parents aren’t trying to make a point about responsibility by grounding him or whatever. 

Connor does have a car but he also has a sense of like, environmental and fiscal responsibility. Which, Dylan privately thinks that if the world and Connor’s bank account are gonna collapse if he drives his car to work sometimes instead of taking the bus then there are bigger issues at play. But far be it from him to stop Connor from following his heart. 

“You know you don’t have to pick me up from work,” Connor says plaintively and Dylan looks down from where he’d been sunbathing against the hood of Ryan’s sensible and ancient SUV. 

“Davo,” he says and grins. 

“Hey, Dyls,” Connor says with his traditional embarrassed-looking smile. He's standing pigeon-toed and wearing, Dylan wishes he were lying, a tie. Dylan is pretty sure it’s an optional part of his uniform. Connor wears it nearly every day anyway. 

So, the thing where Dylan’s basically been in love with McDavid since he pushed Connor over in the sandbox in like preschool isn’t much of a thing. 

“That wasn't very nice,” Connor had said, looking about as righteous as Dylan has ever seen a toddler look. “That's not how you make friends.”

Dylan had helped him up and then Connor had shoved him over into the sand and laughed at him. 

Dylan is pretty sure Connor's his soulmate. It's like, is that a big deal? Dylan is pretty sure it isn't. 

“What is _up_ , McDork?” he demands and throws an arm around Connor's shoulders, making sure to ruffle his carefully combed hair. Connor yelps at him but doesn't make any attempt to get away and yeah, Connor's totally his soulmate. It's kinda a shame he isn't Connor's, but he got over that shit in middle school. “How was work?” 

There's only so much Simple Plan a man can listen to before he gets the fuck over himself. 

“Same as always,” Connor says, which is depressing as hell frankly, but he's all pink and excited and Dylan is a sucker. “I want fries.”

“Let's get you some fries, bitch,” Dylan declares. It's summer. Life is great.

-/-

Rumor has it that Taylor Hall put Mitch in a trash can his freshman year, when Hall was a senior. These rumors are to Dylan’s knowledge unsubstantiated, but the way Mitch goes tense like he’d just touched a live electrical wire when Hall pushes the Smoothie Shack door open and saunters inside with a hoard of his douchey friends is pretty speaking anyway.

Whatever the truth, Hall is douche and Dylan is gritting his teeth already. 

“Mitch,” Hall greets. “And you, whatever your name is.” 

Dylan looks down at his name tag and decides he understands the sheer hatred Mitch is radiating right now. 

“What can I do for you?” he asks, forcing his biggest and brightest _fuck you_ customer smile. Hall doesn’t flinch. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Hall says and Dylan has no idea whatsoever to do when he just- pushes up the little wooden barrier between the customer floor and the blender area and walks in. 

“Uh?” Dylan says intelligently. Hall pushes up a sleeve and grabs a scoop of vanilla yogurt and goes to lift the top off a blender. Mitch gets his hand on top of it just in time and then he’s just staring up into Hall’s evil smirk, his hand straining to keep the lid on the jug. Yogurt slips out of the scoop in Hall’s hand and spatters on the floor. 

“Customers aren’t supposed to be behind the counter,” Dylan tries. Hall doesn’t even glance at him. 

“Fuck off, it’s fine,” he says brusquely and he’s already knocked Mitch's hand aside to get the blender open. Mitch is standing on his other side, hands up on the air like there’s a single damn thing he can do and Dylan meets his eyes and reads the same blank, _what the fuck_ confusion there. “You never do it right anyway, lemme fuckin’ do it.” 

“Hall,” JT snaps from the door to the office and Dylan sags in relief. 

Hall grins at JT. He somehow looks less sure of himself. 

“Jonathan,” he greets. Dylan watches in fascination as a muscle flexes in JT’s jaw. He’s only ever seen that happen when he like, spills their entire supply of yogurt in the backroom or Mitch shows up to shifts an hour late. JT is _pissed_. “Hey, bro.” 

“Customers need to stay on the other side of the counter,” JT says, and when Hall doesn’t immediately begin moving, “please.” 

Dylan is so incredibly and deeply jealous of how JT manages to make the _please_ sound like a dirty word. He wants to be able to do that. He wonders if that’s the kind of thing a degree in business management teaches. 

“Hallsy,” one of Hall’s friends says, sounding incredibly bored. “This place blows.” 

Hall finally starts moving towards the door. JT watches the whole way and Dylan realizes he’d been holding his breath only when Mitch elbows him in the side and it all rushes out of him at once. He’s kind of lightheaded, he realizes. 

The door to the office slams closed and they both jump. 

“Jesus shitting Christ,” Mitch hisses at him and Dylan heartily agrees. 

He looks down and sees the spattered smear of vanilla yogurt in footsteps leading to the door. 

“Aww, fuck,” he groans and goes for the mop.

-/-

Matt Martin plays for the AHL and Mitch thinks he’s the coolest person to ever exist, ever. More than Gretzky, maybe.

Dylan doesn’t necessarily disagree, but like… the matching outfits are a bit much. 

“How do you get him to agree to do this?” he asks Mitch in an undertone. Mitch grins at him smugly and sips at the virgin margarita that Dylan is refusing to admit looks a lot tastier than the non-alcoholic beer he’s been relegated to. Being a year under the drinking age fucking blows. 

“You’re just jealous,” Mitch says grandly and swirls the violently pink fake cocktail with the garnish stick. He’s wearing a white and blue checkered button down and slightly wrinkled slacks and looks like a tool. Improbably, somehow, astoundingly, Marty has voluntarily worn the same outfit in public. Although he looks less like a tool.

Dylan is not jealous. 

“I am not jealous,” he mumbles down to his highly mediocre fettuccine alfredo. 

“Boys,” Marty says mildly. He’s not even a decade older than them, Dylan thinks sourly, but keeps to himself because his mom would definitely kill him if she ever caught wind he was being rude to someone buying him dinner. Plus, grudgingly, he has to admit that Marty is pretty awesome. 

“Sorry, Marts,” Mitch says like a shithead and a suck up. He’s smirking across the table at Dylan and sipping his stupid cocktail. Dylan aches to kick him. 

“I’m just saying,” he says because he can’t kick Mitch without Marty noticing but Marty’s got his hot girlfriend on his other side and probably isn’t listening so long as Dylan keeps the volume level down. “You look like a tool. You look like a whole box of tools.” 

“I look fly as hell,” Mitch tells him and adjusts the collar of his shirt ostentatiously. He's not even wearing a tie. They're eating at _Olive Garden_. Dylan has no idea why they're friends. 

“You're spilling marinara on your pants,” he says meanly. Mitch jerks to look. Dylan laughs because Mitch is eating an alfredo too, no one at the table has anything with marinara, and Mitch is a massive idiot. 

“You're such a prick!” Mitch hisses, red-faced.

“I cannot fucking believe your fucking peewee hockey coach still takes you out for dinner,” Dylan fires back because he is _not_ fucking jealous. “You haven’t played hockey since middle school.” 

“He hasn’t coached since he got into the AHL,” Mitch points out like a bratty asshole. “You’re getting free dinner so shut the fuck up, you jealous bitch.” 

“I’m not jealous!” Dylan exclaims jealously. 

“Boys,” Marty says, less mildly. 

Dylan chugs his fake beer sulkily. Mitch is not cool just because he’s friends with someone in the AHL. Mitch isn’t cool, period.

-/-

According to the big binder full of slightly outdated forms and guidelines Connor isn’t supposed to be in the store when they're closing up. Dylan believes they should be grateful he doesn’t throw a party every time he works a close shift, because it’s not like JT sticks around to know if he does.

Connor gets nervous every time anyway. It’s so adorable of him, how he tries every time to say he can wait for them in the car. Dylan knows all he’s going to be doing is listening to sad indie music and watching skate videos on his phone and feeling sorry for himself, all of which Connor can do sitting behind the Smoothie Shack counter while he and Mitch do the bare minimum not to get fired for slacking about closing. 

“Guys,” Connor says predictably. He’s fidgeting anxiously. It’s unreasonably adorable. “I don't know.” 

“Don't be a hero, McDavid,” Dylan sneers at him and yanks him inside, locking the doors behind him and flicking off the Open sign. Connor doesn't stop making nervous little noises until Dylan's settled him in the corner of the bathroom hallway out of sight of the window clutching a slightly melted Strawberry Fields Forever a customer had left at the till. 

Mitch doesn't look up from his phone until Dylan throws a spray bottle of Windex at him. 

“Hey!” he snaps, clutching the bottle. 

“Hurry up and help me close,” Dylan says, snagging the mop bucket. “I wanna hit Taco Bell before it closes.” 

“I could go for a burrito,” Connor pipes up from behind them and Mitch grumbles but starts wiping the blenders down anyway. Dylan flips him off and heads to wipe down the bathroom, making sure to salute Employee of The Month Benn as he goes. He leaves the door propped open so he can hear if Mitch starts talking shit and retaliate appropriately. 

“What is up with you and this dude?” Connor asks, gesturing up at Employee of The Month Benn. Dylan shrugs and scrubs at a stubborn smoothie stain next to the sink. Fucking raspberries, for real. The seeds are a bitch to get up when they’ve baked into the linoleum. 

“That’s Jamie Benn,” Mitch says from where he’s wiping idly at the spotless counter just in view down the bathroom hallway because he’s a lazy bastard. “He’s good luck.” 

“Yeah,” Dylan puts in and pumps his fist when the last of the raspberry seeds come up. “Invoke his name for tips and shit. Whatever. He hasn’t worked here in like, two years?” 

“In a better place now,” Mitch puts in smarmily. Dylan snorts. 

“Is he…” Connor asks delicately and Mitch is laughing before the words even clear Connor’s mouth. 

“Location across town,” Dylan tells him kindly. “Tips are better. Shut the fuck up, Marner, you know Davo is a gullible idiot.” 

“Hey!” Connor squawks, and Mitch flicks a gross towel soaked in dishwater at him.

-/-

The thing about Connor’s job is that Connor hates it.

It's a glorified cross between a golf caddy and a waiter at a country club full of people Dylan hates on sight but Connor's making almost half as much again as Dylan or Mitch and he doesn't end the day smelling like a used fruit basket, so Dylan privately envies him just a little. He thinks he could put up with slightly senile old men clapping him on the shoulder and calling him ‘sonny’ or whatever the fuck. 

The more important thing about Connor’s job, in Dylan’s humble opinion, is that his work friends fucking blow and Dylan hates them. 

“Come on,” Connor says, sounding vaguely put-out. “Drai isn’t that bad. And Nuge is pretty funny, uh, sometimes.” 

“He tells people to call him _Drai_ ,” Dylan says disgustedly, like that says everything that needs to be said, because it does. “And the _Nuuuuuuuge_ is a colossal prick.” 

“You’re a prick,” Connor points out. “So is Mitch, and I love you both.” 

“Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is formally invited to suck my dick and balls, and you can tell him that,” Dylan tells him, and hopes he doesn’t. Nugent-Hopkins outweighs him by like, fifty pounds, and Dylan isn’t counting on Mitch in a fight. 

“You don’t have to be mean,” Connor sighs and Dylan rolls over on the bed to get in range to ruffle his hair. 

“Davo, I’m gonna hate your prick country club friends forever,” he says cheerfully. “Get used to it. I’ll still think you’re the shit even if your other friends are douchebags.” 

Connor smiles at him reluctantly and Dylan grins back and snatches his hands out of Connor’s hair because, fuck, he’s an idiot and he keeps doing this shit. Goddamn. 

Connor’s hair is really soft. Whatever. _Fuck_. 

“Just,” Connor says, “please don’t tell Nuge to suck your dick in person. I do have to work with them.” 

“No promises,” Dylan says darkly. He won’t, but sweating it out a little will do Connor some good.

-/-

Dylan finds Mitch hiding under the counter after clocking in, which is pretty weird.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks reasonably. Mitch peeks out at him over his knees. 

He's kind of pale. His grip on his knees is a little bit desperate. There's peach purée in his hair. Dylan isn’t entirely sure how he’d fit himself into the space barely big enough for a ten-gallon trash can. 

“Dylan, I am so fucked,” he says and tries to shove himself even further back under the counter. Dylan squints at him. 

“Did you leave out all the yogurt again?” he hazards at last. 

“Worse,” Mitch says dismally. 

“Did you screw JT’s girlfriend?” he guesses and dodges easily when Mitch learns out to try to punch him in the leg. 

“You're such a fuckin’ freak,” Mitch grumbles. “No, worse.”

“Bro,” Dylan says, because there are limited atrocities Mitch can have committed in the hour he was alone in the store. 

“I broke a blender,” Mitch says and buries his face in his knees. 

Dylan spins to look at their blenders. 

“Mitchell,” he says after a minute, awed. “Jesus, how did you _do_ that?” 

“Help me, douchewad,” Mitch snaps, muffled by the way he’s trying to curl up until he disappears. 

“This is like, beyond me,” Dylan tells him and reaches out to poke gingerly at what had probably been a blender once upon a time. He’s not sure how he’d missed all the wreckage, before. 

“Freddie’s gonna _kill_ me,” Mitch groans into his knees. 

“He is not,” Dylan scoffs. Mitch lifts his head to stare balefully. 

“Easy for you to say,” he hisses. “Freddie loves you, he’d never kill you. He's gonna murder me and then put me through the other blender.” 

“He will not!” Dylan says. “And he does not, what the fuck, last time I fucked up an inventory check he locked me in the supply closet for like an _hour_.”

“But,” Mitch says and a wavering hand extends out from under the counter to point at Dylan's hip. “He didn't tell JT.”

Dylan tries to think of an argument and comes up with nothing. 

“Damn,” he says. “You're right, Freddie is totally in love with me.” 

“Help me!” Mitch cries and there's a thud like he'd just tried to stamp his foot angrily and just kind of drummed his heels against the linoleum because of how he's bunched up under the counter. 

Dylan leans against the counter and looks at the wreckage of what had once been their leftmost blender. 

“Call Marty,” he says at last. “He'll know what to do.”

-/-

“I don’t know what you expect me to be able to do here,” Marty says, hands on his hips, surveying what had once been and is no longer a blender. “I play hockey, guys, I don’t like… fix shit.”

“Marty,” Mitch says. He’d crawled out from under the counter when Marty had come in, peach purée firmly dried into his hair, looking piteous and miserable. “Dude, please, you don’t understand. Freddie’s gonna _blend_ me.” 

Marty looks at Mitch with a look Dylan is intimately familiar with. _What the fuck, Mitchell Marner_ , says that look. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says at last. “Go see if you can find a spare… jug, jar thing. Whatever that is. I don’t think I can salvage that.” 

Dylan goes. 

By the time he’s pulled one out of a dusty box in the back of the storage room, Marty’s somehow cobbled the blender base back together and Mitch looks like he’s about to start crying with joy. The jar fits into place perfectly and when Dylan hesitantly puts a strawberry in it blends it just fine. 

Mitch throws his arms around Marty who pats his back awkwardly, looking bemused but also pleased with himself. 

“Can I get a smoothie, since I’m here?” he asks when Mitch’s hysterical and mostly incoherent babbling has died down to an acceptable level of background noise.

-/-

Sometimes Dylan’s trucks are rattling over cement it’s technically illegal to for them to rattle over and Mitch is whooping behind him and there’s the hissing crunch of the underside of Connor’s deck grinding against the back of a bench or whatever and Dylan knows the top of to the world couldn’t be more or better than this.

There’s nothing in the world better than hitting a kickflip off the end of some shitty park’s sculpture garden bench and knowing it’s gold, knowing even if no one saw it it’s worth a solid Olympic gold. Dylan would lay every cent of his shitty Smoothie Shack savings on it. With respect to Mr. Astley, he’s never gonna give this up. 

“Frontside Disaster!” Connor calls from the top of the opposite ramp and Mitch crows in agreement. It doesn’t matter at all Dylan’s never landed it because this time, this time he will. 

He kicks off the skate park ramp and knows he’s gonna nail it perfectly. It’s sweet as sugar, griptape scratching under his Vans and trucks riding the uneven cement like friction has been temporarily canceled. His board lands centered on the coping just right and he glances back over his shoulder to catch Mitch’s wide, wide grin before he’s slipping back down the ramp. 

He makes sure to salute the security cameras he absolutely knows no one checks when he hits bottom. The spirit of it or whatever.

-/-

Mitch has friends that aren’t Connor or Dylan, to Dylan’s perpetual surprise.

“I have _friends_ , Dyls,” Mitch says and rolls his eyes at Dylan. “I’m like, likeable and shit. Charming. People love me.” 

“You’re obnoxious,” Dylan informs him. 

“He’s not wrong,” says Auston. 

He’s smiling as much as he ever does, which is to say his lips quirk slightly up at the corners and the blank disdain lightens somewhat. Dylan is pretty sure that’s just the way Auston’s face is and that Auston really does have emotions and feelings but he also can’t quite shake the feeling Auston dislikes him. It’s not like he’d ever know - Auston Matthews does not rate high on the visible emotion scale. 

“You’re both assholes,” Mitch says and puts his hands on his hips. 

“So, when are you gonna quit and come work at the shoe shop with us?” Auston asks, ignoring him. Dylan settles back with his eyebrows raised. 

“Never,” Mitch says easily. “C’mon, Matty Lite, you know shoes aren’t my thing.” 

“Dude,” Auston urges. “This place blows. No offense,” he directs to Dylan. 

“It’s not like you’re wrong,” Dylan agrees with a shrug, even though he kind of doesn’t really want Mitch to leave. He doesn’t hate shifts with Freddie but… Freddie just isn’t Mitch. 

“Nah,” Mitch says. He’s grinning serenely and Auston rolls his eyes tolerantly. “Want anything?” 

“Sure.” Auston shrugs. “Gimme a Coconut Caribbean Cream.” 

He leaves with his smoothie and a wave at both of them and Dylan sighs. 

“Is his face just stuck like that?” he asks, because he’s physically incapable of not being a dick about Mitch’s friends. Mitch punches him in the shoulder. 

“Like, yes,” he says. He’s grinning. “Don’t make fun of him, it’s rude.” 

“You should take the shoe job,” Dylan says unwillingly. “Pay’s better, plus you wouldn’t smell like fuckin’ strawberries every day.” 

Mitch just kind of looks at him for a second, expression all screwed up in a way Dylan doesn’t really understand. Like he’s thinking something unpleasant or like Dylan accidentally said something stupid and Mitch is trying to figure out how to break it to him gently. It clears after a minute, though, into just Mitch rolling his eyes. 

“I would have to touch people’s feet, though,” Mitch points out. “Plus the perks here are too nice.” 

“What perks?” Dylan asks with a snort. 

Mitch smiles and turns away to rinse Auston’s smoothie out of the blender. 

“What perks, Mitchell?” Dylan demands, and goes in for a noogie, and in the ensuing tussle kind of forgets to get an answer.

-/-

“Mitch is here,” his mom calls to him as soon as he gets in the door and Dylan groans theatrically. One of the downsides to Marner as a friend and like, person is that he has no manners or regard for things like waiting for an invitation to show up at someone’s house. Dylan’s mom thinks he’s charming somehow.

“You let him inside?” he demands, mostly for show. His mom pops her head around the door to the living room to give him a reproving look. Dylan rolls his eyes but makes sure to do it while he’s looking down to kick his shoes into the shoe rack so she can’t see. 

“He’s in your room I think,” is all she says and Dylan traipses off to go complain at Mitch for invading his home. 

Mitch is ensconced on Dylan’s bed, watching Dylan’s TV, getting his dirty socks all over Dylan’s duvet. There’s a bag of Dylan’s pretzels open at his elbow because Dylan’s mom is a _traitor_. He’s wearing a suspiciously tight and oddly familiar System of a Down hoodie. Dylan squints at it. 

“Is that my hoodie?” Dylan demands, because he knows it is. Mitch doesn't look up. 

“I'm cold,” he says. 

“You're gonna give it back later,” Dylan says threateningly. “That shit was expensive.” 

Mitch finally looks at him, stupid and turtle-like in the folds of the hood. The fabric is leaving little lint pills in his hair. His eyelashes are just- stupidly long. 

“Am not,” he says, which, convincing fucking argument. 

“I know where you fucking live, Marns,” Dylan threatens, ducking to fish the Xbox controller out from under his bed. It takes a while because there’s a lot of random, gross bullshit hanging out under his bed. He makes a mental note to trick Connor into tidying up down there for him. 

He pops his head back up when he realizes Mitch hasn’t answered him, frowning. 

Mitch is ignoring him, thumbs flying over his phone keyboard. Dylan scowls and socks him in the thigh hard enough that Mitch yelps and tries to kick him in the face. 

“Call of Duty?” he asks when Mitch has stopped trying to break his nose, holding up the controller. Mitch scowls back at him but reaches out for it reluctantly.

-/-

Connor regularly embarrasses the entire world when he gets on a skateboard which is why it’s such a crying goddamn shame he does it wearing khaki shorts and an honest-to-Jesus polo shirt. Not even Mitch getting him in a headlock and forcing him to untuck it can stop the power of pure dorkitude.

“He’s an embarrassment,” he despairs to Mitch as Connor pops a standing heelflip like it’s totally casual to do at the edge of a ramp like a lunatic. The tail of his rumpled polo shirt flutters like a little flag of loserdom and humiliation. Mitch sighs glumly and thumps his head back against the cement once. “The next Tony fuckin’ Hawk and he wears that shit.” 

“Connor McDavid’s Pro Skater,” Mitch snickers. 

“Unlock the exclusive shitty polo shirt and khakis combo,” Dylan puts in and scoops up the empty Gatorade bottle he’s been toying with idly for the twenty minutes Connor’s been spending ignoring the fact that if he rolls half a foot to his left he’s gonna spill down five feet of unforgiving cement ramp on his face. Connor jumps when Dylan nails him in the hip with it. “Try the semi flip, Davo!” 

“Kay!” Connor says and kicks off down the ramp instead of trying it where he’d been standing, thank god. 

“More like… _yolo_ shirt,” Mitch murmurs in Dylan’s ear and Dylan scrambles over to try to punch him in the face like that joke truly deserves.

-/-

It’s a mystery for the ages why Dylan ever says yes to anything Mitch asks him because Mitch is a noted dipshit and inconvenience. Also, Dylan hates being sober around drunk people. Inevitably someone tries to punch him in the face. It’s like, a thing at this point. It’s happened at the last three parties Mitch has somehow conned him into being designated sober bitch to.

He needs to either learn how to say no or stop losing bets, he thinks dismally, gently pushing away an extremely drunk indistinguishably blond kid he’s pretty sure had been a senior at their high school last year. At least being sober makes it easier to dodge punches. 

“You could beat him,” Mitch slurs against his shoulder. Dylan has a headache. 

“I’m not fighting him,” he sighs. The party is winding down at least. He can go the fuck home and smoke a bowl and just like, regret every single decision that has led him to be friends with Mitchell fucking Marner. 

“He’s tryin’ to fight you,” Mitch mumbles, slightly muffled by how he’s apparently trying to chew on Dylan’s hood. 

“That’s his problem,” Dylan says, because the kid has kind of fallen over and is trying to stand back up. Another, equally drunk blond dude is trying to help him up. Dylan is not worried. 

He wants a fucking beer. Mitch burps in his ear. 

“Let’s get you to the car,” he sighs. 

Getting Mitch strapped into the passenger seat goes pretty well after Dylan’s extracted a solemn promise to make Dylan pull over if Mitch decides he needs to vomit. It’s only after Dylan’s climbed in the driver’s side that Mitch sags over the console to lean against his shoulder again. 

“Take me to Marty’s,” he mumbles, and Dylan kind of blinks down at him. 

“Home?” he asks. Mitch shakes his head. 

“Marty’s,” he insists, and like… okay?

“Okay,” Dylan says and shrugs and then makes Mitch type the address into his phone for him because responsible driving, obviously. Even if it takes Mitch twenty whole tries to spell it right, squinting at Dylan’s phone like it’s astrophysics. Absolute space case. Dylan hopes he’d warned Marty they’d be coming over. 

Getting Mitch up the steps to Marty's apartment is an adventure because Mitch is a fucking octopus when he's wasted and all he wants to do is cuddle up. He keeps letting his knees go loose like if he puts enough of his weight on Dylan eventually they'll fall over and he can lay down. Drunk Mitch is _cunning_.

“Stand up, you messy motherfucker,” he finally snaps and pinches Mitch in the side. Mitch doesn’t even appear to notice, just nuzzles in against Dylan's neck like a drunk loser. 

“I,” he slurs grandly, slightly muffled, “am a wild and fuckin’... untamed thing, Strome. A stallion.” 

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Dylan grunts and decides that he is never ever not _ever_ going to think about how Mitch’s breath against the side of his face is making his gut all- shivery and weird. Not fucking _ever_. 

He doesn’t even have the excuse of being drunk because he’d agreed to drive Mitch like a good friend and total idiot. Mitch’s breath smells like vodka, Slurpee, and Cheetos. Everything blows ass right now. 

Marty answers the door on the second knock, yawning and squinting at them until he sees Mitch hanging off Dylan's shoulder like a misshapen Christmas ornament. He rolls his eyes tolerantly and for some reason doesn’t look surprised at all to see them. 

“I can take it from here,” he says and Dylan is like, he's _not_ going to examine the instinct that tells him to pull Mitch in tighter instead of handing him off. He doesn't act on it anyway, just helps Mitch over the doorstep. Marty catches him when he starts to stumble, an arm under his. 

Dylan follows him into the cluttered apartment because Marty didn't say he couldn't and Dylan does not trust like that, okay. He has no idea why they’re at Marty’s apartment instead of Mitch’s fucking house, but he’s gonna get to the bottom of it. Also, watching Marty try to wrangle a Mitch possibly even less interested in staying upright now that he’s somewhere warm is fucking hilarious. Marty might have the muscle mass advantage but he takes the L in willingness to pinch Mitch when he gets all saggy. 

Halfway through the living room Mitch just goes _limp_. Marty physically picks him up with a heavy sigh Dylan feels in his soul. 

Mitch doesn’t make any fuss about being tossed bodily onto the guest bed, just muttering happily to himself and squirming around to kick off his shoes. Marty doesn’t make any move to help, just crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows judgmentally at him. Dylan grins. He’s really starting to see what Mitch admires so much about Marty. 

“You’re an inconvenience and I hate you,” he assures Mitch and reaches out to ruffle his hair before he goes. 

In a stunning display of drunk athleticism Mitch somehow manages to snatch his wrist out of the air. 

“Stay,” he says, muffled by how he’s lying face down in the pillows. His grip on Dylan’s wrist is like kind of terrifyingly strong. His hand is warm and sweaty and a little sticky with something Dylan is not terribly interested in knowing the origin of. Dylan blinks at Marty. 

“Cool with me,” Marty says with a shrug. “Throw up in the toilet if you do and don’t break any of my shit.” 

“Deal,” Dylan says and watches Marty shuffle back out of the guest room.

He gets a chance to really look around the room for the first time, as he’s convincing Mitch to let go of his wrist because he’s totally staying, no _really_ , he just needs to get his jeans off because he’s absolutely not sleeping in them. Mitch seems to wake up a little at that, peering out through a fold in the duvet at him as he shucks his hoodie and jeans and kicks his socks clean. 

The room looks… really homey, for what should be a guest room. Mitch's clothes are hanging messily out of the bureau. His Smoothie Shack uniform is crumpled by the door. His shitty, ancient laptop is balanced precariously in the corner. 

It looks… it really looks like… 

“Don't tell Davo,” Mitch mumbles into Dylan's shoulder when he crawls into bed. He’s nearly asleep, and Dylan nods, and doesn’t fall asleep for a long, long time.

-/-

Dylan is a big believer in the power of positive thinking and like, visualization and affirmations and all the prime bullshit his little league softball coach had spent twenty minutes per practice telling the team about way back in elementary school. Which is why when he wakes up with a heavy warm weight plastered to his chest, a mouthful of Mitch’s slightly greasy hair, and the desperate need to piss out all the shitty flat cola he drank last night in lieu of anything fun, all he does is shove Mitch off of him and shuffle in search of Marty’s bathroom.

He stares at the generic IKEA shelf full of slightly ratty cheap hand towels and resolutely does not think about how apparently Mitch has been living in Matt Martin’s spare bedroom for- 

God, how long? 

He pulls his boxers back up and washes his hands and doesn’t think about it. He’d said he wouldn’t tell Connor about it. He kind of regrets that already.

-/-

“I didn’t mean for you to like, come inside,” is what Mitch says and Dylan takes a huge gulp of his mug of coffee because _Jesus Christ_. “You weren't supposed to see all this.”

The coffee burns his mouth a little. He swallows anyway because he is not a coward. 

“I’m sorry?” he says when he’s done covertly breathing through his mouth to ease the pain. He hadn’t expected… he hadn’t expected any of this, honestly, but he really hadn’t expected Mitch to corner him at Marty’s breakfast table and address the air over Dylan’s head with a ferocious sort of nonchalance. Dylan is so fucking out of his depth. 

Mitch scowls. 

“It’s not a big deal,” he insists like it’s a big fucking deal. Dylan sips at his coffee and tries to think of like, anything he could say. He’s kind of glad Marty left early to go to the gym even if the fact Mitch apparently has keys is telling all on its own. “So like, don’t make a big deal out of this.” 

“I wasn’t,” Dylan says. He’s not sure if he’s lying or not. It kind of _feels_ like a big deal. Mitch stares at him for a while. 

“Good,” he says at last. Dylan sips his coffee again. It’s not very good coffee. “So, like. You can’t tell Davo.” 

“Mitchy,” Dylan says helplessly because technically he already said he wouldn’t but. 

Fuck. 

“You can’t,” Mitch says fiercely. 

“Mitch,” Dylan says and when Mitch just glares at him ducks into a shrug. It’s stupid hard to meet Mitch’s eyes right now. It sucks. “Fine. I won’t tell him. Whatever this is. I won’t talk to Connor about it.” 

Mitch sighs and it’s like all the anger goes out of him at once. Abruptly the room feels colder. Dylan thinks wistfully of like, twelve hours ago, when his biggest concern had been the fact he’d promised Mitch he’d Designated Driver the shit out of the evening. He misses those simple times. 

“Good,” Mitch says quietly and turns to make a mug of coffee for himself. Marty’s shitty coffee maker burbles to itself and Dylan wonders if Mitch feels half as uncomfortable as he does. Something about the stiff line of his back says he does. 

“So,” Dylan says and watches Mitch’s shoulders go tight like _magic_. “How long?” 

Mitch finishes mixing a truly disgusting and obscene amount of creamer and sugar into his coffee and turns, clutching his mug of coffee-flavored sugar in both hands. He looks hunched and small. 

“A while,” Mitch says. “None of your business, honestly.” 

And that kind of hits Dylan right in the chest. Jesus. 

“Dude,” Dylan says. 

“Bro,” Mitch says and he’s not really meeting Dylan’s eyes. There must be something really interesting about two inches left of Dylan’s ear, he thinks hysterically, because Mitch is staring pretty intensely at it. “It’s really not a big deal. I don’t like, want to talk about it.” 

Dylan can’t really say anything for a while. He can’t really think of anything to say. 

Eventually Mitch meets his eyes. 

“Seriously,” he says and he looks… tired. Tired, and uncomfortable, and defensive. “No big deal. I have everything under control.” 

“You’re okay?” Dylan croaks. Mitch smiles. It’s not the most sincere expression Dylan’s ever seen on his face. 

“I’m fine,” he says. “Just leave it. It’s all good.” 

“Okay,” Dylan says, and forces himself to look down at his hands because he doesn’t know what the fuck else to do.

-/-

Dinner at Connor’s is always a little awkward. A little stiff. It’s really apparent where Connor’s like, everything came from. The McDavids are nice and all but so upper-middle class Dylan feels a little grimy even if he showered just an hour ago and wears his nice button down and jeans with barely any holes. Plus, his most engaging topic of conversation is the sick grind-flip combo he strung together last week and, well.

Mrs. McDavid’s face when he talks about skateboarding is… not encouraging. 

So, mostly he keeps quiet and makes up shit whenever someone asks him a direct question and plays footsie with Connor when Connor forgets himself enough to unclench and kick back. It’s usually bearable. 

“So, Dylan,” Mrs. McDavid says and smiles at him. Dylan smiles back and wonders how on _earth_ she manages to make his first name sound so formal. “Have you been looking into colleges lately?” 

Dylan smiles his customer service smile and starts sweating. There is no way on heaven or earth he’s going to say that he hasn’t cracked a college pamphlet all summer, but he also has no fucking idea what colleges he would have the remotest chance of attending. He’s pretty sure there’s a community college in the next town over but that’s about as far as his knowledge extends. 

“Well, yeah,” he says and hopes he’s not sweating too visibly. Connor’s foot nudges against his under the table in silent commiseration. “Um, you know, there’s a bunch of colleges in the area. In, um, Toronto. And I’ve been looking at Montreal too. And there’s always, uhh, community, until I decide what I want.” 

She nods approvingly and Dylan takes a desperate bite of pork chop and hopes chewing slowly will prevent her from asking any more question. 

“It seems like Dylan’s got an idea about his future,” she says, turning to Connor, and Dylan chews harder because he is a lying liar. “Have you taken a look at those pamphlets I left in your room?” 

Dylan watches the life drain from Connor’s expression like some kind of shitty magic spell. Shit. 

“I have,” he says softly and Dylan’s pretty sure he’s the only one at the table that can really tell just how miserable Connor abruptly is but the lack of enthusiasm is glaring enough for a blind man to see. He starts looking around covertly for something to change the subject with but the dining room is _so_ fucking beige. 

“Did you like any of them?” his mom prompts and Mr. McDavid finally looks up from his porkchop. Connor looks down at his own plate. He hasn’t eaten much. 

“I thought maybe University of Toronto,” he says. He’s lying out of his ass but Mrs. McDavid smiles anyway. 

“Have to really work to get your grades up for that,” Mr. McDavid says to his plate. “Extracurriculars. Networking at your job can’t hurt, make sure you’re shaking hands.” 

“I know,” Connor says and Dylan knocks over his glass of water out of pure desperation for the conversation to be over. In the ensuing scramble and desperate fake apologies at least everyone stops talking about fucking university.

-/-

Dylan chatters away the whole time they’re getting ready for bed, random bullshit he doesn’t pay a lot of attention to. Just something to fill the silence. Connor’s shoulders loosen as they go but he’s still so quiet.

Dylan’s voice runs out as he’s sliding under the comforter with Connor. Usually he spends a little while angsting about sleeping in the same bed as the love of his life but he doesn’t really have it in him right now. Connor’s too quiet and Dylan’s just… tired. 

“I really love skateboarding,” Connor says quietly and Dylan is privately kind of glad the room is dark. He thinks what his face is doing is probably embarrassing. His mouth feels all turned down and pinched. 

“I know, dude,” he says, and thank _God_ his voice comes out mostly normal. There is no excuse for acting like a total non when Connor’s obviously feeling some shit and needs a bro’s support. “Me too.” 

“Do you think I'm… good enough?” Connor asks. “To, y’know… do something with it.” 

His voice is just so fucking small in the oppressively quiet dark of his neat little bedroom. Dylan stares up at the ceiling and he's worked really hard not to be angry at Connor's family because they do love him, they do. 

“You're gonna be the best the world's ever seen, Davo,” he mumbles when he feels like he can talk normally. Connor curls up even tighter but he pushes back into the grip Dylan has around his shoulders and that’s not nothing. 

He thinks stupidly of Mitch. Thinks about Marty’s spare bedroom. Thinks about how he shouldn’t tell Connor about it, about how he promised and Connor’s stressed out already. How he’s scared for no damn reason because he doesn’t know what there is to be scared of. His chest hurts. 

“You’re gonna be amazing,” he continues. He’s not sure if Connor’s even listening, he’s breathing snuffly and uneven like he does when he’s falling asleep. Dylan’s heart double-beats, which he’s used to with Connor. He’s been in love with Connor for, Jesus. Years and years. “Best ever. Game changer, McDavid. I fucking mean it. 

Connor snuffles at him. Dylan squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to feel guilty for shit he has no reason to feel guilty for.

-/-

It is already a fucking uncomfortable shift when Hall shows up because Dylan can’t stop looking at Mitch out of the corner of his eye and _thinking_ about it all, and he’s pretty sure Mitch has noticed and is not happy about it. He doesn’t say anything though; his shoulders just get more and more tense every time Dylan glances over. It’s really quiet when there’s no customers, despite the shitty Top 40’s piped in overhead.

So Hall opens the door with a shit-eating grin and Dylan is almost relieved for something to break the tension. 

Almost. 

“Hall,” Mitch says, sounding kind of like someone has just handed him a grenade with the pin still in it. Just a _little_ uncomfortable. Hall grins at both of them. 

“Boys,” he says with a nasty little smirk and like, Dylan is astounded. He’s never heard anyone sound so much like the villain of a Disney Channel original movie before. He didn’t think people actually sounded like that in real life. 

“What can I get you,” Dylan says flatly because he is not going to be baited into a screaming match in his place of employment. Not even at Taylor Hall. 

Hall saunters right up to the little glass barrier separating the toppings options from the customer line and puts his elbows right on it. Mitch twitches faintly. Dylan wills him to keep his calm and tries on a tight smile. 

“Well,” Taylor says and he is smirking so hard. Dylan hates him. “ _Well_. What’s good on the menu?” 

Mitch stares at him. 

“Triple berry,” Dylan says flatly. Hall lets his arms hang down over the barrier. Mitch twitches again, harder this time. 

“Don’t like berries,” Hall muses. He’s still hanging over the barrier. 

“Peachy Pineapple doesn’t have any berries,” Dylan offers helplessly. 

“Don’t like fruit much,” Hall says nonchalantly and Dylan is frankly kind of amazed Mitch hasn’t taken off on a contrail of pure pressurized hatred. 

“Then why the f- Why are you _here?_ ” Mitch hisses. Dylan puts a hand on his arm, mostly so he can grab hold and haul him back if he tries to vault the barrier like it’s looking like he’s about to. Hall grins at them. 

“I want a smoothie,” he says. “Obviously.” 

“Fuck off and go listen to Toby Keith or whatever the fuck,” Mitch says, pretty bravely by Dylan’s estimation. Hall grins at him. 

“Swearing at customers,” he says and clucks his tongue mockingly. “I’m gonna have to report you to your manager for that, y’know.” 

Mitch opens his mouth, most likely to say something even worse. Dylan abruptly finds himself facing the unfortunate moral dilemma of whether he’s going to be willing to get into a brawl with a fucking dick of a customer for his fucking idiot of a coworker best friend at two in the afternoon. Like, yes, he’s pretty sure he is willing to do that, but he’s not _happy about it_. 

He clenches his hands into fists just in case. 

“Hall,” JT says from behind them and Dylan jumps about a foot in the air. Mitch jolts like he’d just been shot. “Customers are not allowed to lean on the glass.” 

“Joey,” Hall says easily, straightening up and taking his arms off the barrier. “Man, your employees, I have some complaints to make-” 

“I think you should leave,” JT interrupts. Hall’s eyebrows jump. 

“Sure,” he says after a beat, slow. He glances at Mitch and Dylan and winks. “Later, kids.” 

“This isn’t a fucking teen movie, Hall,” Dylan can’t stop himself from saying. Hall doesn’t respond, just waves over his shoulder and lets the door slap shut behind him. The room suddenly feels a lot more empty than it did before. 

“Don’t swear at customers,” JT says tiredly and is back in the office before Dylan can say anything about how unfair that is. He scowls to himself and kicks at the no-slip rubber mat on the floor. 

“They have like, _heavy_ shit going on,” Mitch murmurs to him. He snorts and punches him in the arm. His relief is at least sixty percent the fact that they’re talking again and Mitch is grinning at him like there’s nothing wrong. 

“Jesus, you think?” he demands in an undertone and turns to scrub industriously at the blender bases in case JT comes back out.

-/-

Dylan has committed himself to a full day of doing exactly fuck all and jack shit, texting Connor and Mitch too alert them to that fact and the fact that they are welcome to join him in the endeavor, provided they don’t bring any work whatsoever to him.

He settles in to eat pretzels and watch Cartoon Network until his brain comes out of his ears. 

Connor shows up just past noon in his work clothes, looking tired but still smiling at Dylan when Dylan bounces up to execute the douchiest possible bro-hug. 

“Morning shift,” he says and kicks off his shoes. 

“You smell like golf clubs,” Dylan mumbles and shoves Connor in the direction of the bed because if he doesn’t then scrupulously polite Canadian stereotype Connor will just stand around until he passes out. He does smell like golf clubs, too, leather and steel and gross old person palm sweat. Also a little like Banana Boat because like, Connor. 

Dylan is disgusted with himself as it is. He tries not to think about how comforting the smell of Banana Boat sunscreen is to him or why. 

“I do not,” Connor says because he refuses to admit that golf clubs have a smell. “Sorry I’m late, I would have gotten here sooner but um, I stayed late to help Sid close the shop up for renovation.” 

Dylan snorts. 

“Oh yeah,” he says. “Your crush on your manager is real cute.” 

Connor goes bright red so fast. 

“I do not have a crush on Sid!” he tries to insist. He’s still so fucking red. Dylan rolls his eyes. 

“Connor, you hate your job,” he reminds him. “You hate old dudes. You stayed to help because you _admire_ your manager’s _character_.”

“I don't _hate old people_ , Dylan!” Connor exclaims, still bright red, and Dylan waves that away because like, way to miss the point, McDavid. 

“You hate those old people specifically,” he says and points at Connor when he opens his mouth. “Do you remember getting like way too drunk and crying because you hate being called kiddo? I do.” 

“Wine coolers get me emotional,” Connor mutters but he's avoiding Dylan's eyes. 

“You scarred Marner for life,” Dylan reminds him. 

Connor scrubs his face with his hands and then looks down at them hanging limply in his lap. His hair is a lank mess. He’s pouting. It’s ASPCA commercial levels of pathetic. Dylan can feel it in his _soul_. 

“I don’t wanna seem… like, ungrateful,” Connor says quietly. “My mom really worked to get me that job.”

There is only so much Dylan can reasonably be expected to take. 

Connor’s head jolts up to watch him when he hops to his feet and goes to his closet, rummaging around on top for his special shoebox. His mouth is hanging open a little and his eyes are so wide and it’s objectively like a pretty doofy expression which is why it’s such a shame Dylan’s dick can apparently work with that. 

Dylan ignores that and ceremoniously knocks the shoebox lid onto the floor to lift free his grimy pipe and film canister of precious, precious loud. 

“In the words of the immortal poet,” Dylan says solemnly, “Partake of this good shit with me, McDavid.” 

Getting Connor calmed down and suitably situated on the bed for maximum stealth cuddling and righteous broship chillaxing takes some doing but eventually he has two Gatorades on the bedside table and a bag of pretzels stashed up by the headboard for when Connor inevitably remembers that he loves crunchy snacks when he’s high. He got out the nice duvet and everything and Netflix already pulled up on his tiny TV. 

He’s pretty sure there’s a couple episodes of Ben 10 or whatever in their future. He’s made his peace with it. 

Life is fucking good, even after Connor tokes too hard and coughs smoke directly in Dylan’s face. Depressingly, Dylan catches himself thinking it’s kind of cute. He drinks some Gatorade gloomily and takes another hit and settles down to the slow process of working an arm around Connor’s shoulders. 

That’s where Mitch finds them an hour later, halfway through Top Gun and coated liberally in pretzel crumbs. 

“What the fuck are you two doing?” he demands, toeing off his shoes. He’s scowling, but he’s just jealous. Dylan can tell. 

“Davo wants cuddles,” Dylan says reasonably and ignores the wavering little _hey!_ Connor pipes up with from the vicinity of his ribcage, punctuated by giggles. As if Connor ever hasn’t been up for cuddles in his entire life. Dylan doesn’t know who he thinks he’s fooling. “Come aboard if you aren’t a chicken-ass dipshit.” 

Mitch stares down at them both, scowling harder. 

“Can’t you move over,” he bitches when Dylan just blinks up at him lazily and Connor doesn’t stop giggling. “Maybe I don’t wanna smell your rank-ass pits, ever think of that?” 

“That's a negative, Ghost Rider,” Dylan says lazily and spreads himself wider across the bed. Connor giggles, tucked almost kind of sort of but not really under Dylan’s arm. He’s curled up tight, a little ball of just _stunningly_ boring earth tone clothing and ratty socks Dylan’s pretty sure had been his once. 

He’s all red-faced when Dylan peeks down. Pot always made him like that, blushing and giggly and like, okay, Dylan has a crush already? Connor doesn’t need to be going in on him so hard like this, is all he’s saying. Jesus Christ. 

Mitch is looking at him when he drags his eyes away. He looks a little constipated, like he’s trying to think or something. 

“Cuddle time is now, bitch,” Dylan prompts helpfully and flaps the hand not currently and extremely carefully cupping the air an inch away from Connor’s hair. Mitch grumbles at him but stops looking like he’s trying to handle intestinal distress and throws himself bodily across both of them so that’s probably alright. 

“I love you guys,” Connor says wheezily. Dylan elbows Mitch’s bony ass out of his face.

-/-

Mitch has spent the past half an hour at _least_ trying to land a pop shove-it and failing literally every time, with exponentially increasing levels of swearing and volume.

Dylan’s sat with Connor on their customary ramp, watching him go at it. The streetlights are coming on and Dylan is kind of jonesing for a burger but he’s not hungry enough yet to say anything. Mostly, he’s enjoying the fireworks and sneakily leaning his shoulder against Connor’s. It’s the perfect kind of summer evening. 

“Think I should tell him his back foot’s too far forward?” Connor says quietly and Dylan laughs, laying back against the cooling cement. 

“Let him figure it out for himself,” he says. “If he’s still fucking it up tomorrow, then maybe.” 

“Mean,” Connor says and twists to look down at him. 

Like this he blocks out half the sky, hair all mussed and fluffy from boarding all day. His mouth is all pink from chewing on it while he concentrates. Dylan’s breath catches a little but he grins because he’s used to it and he’s happy and he can kind of see up Connor’s nose too, from this angle. 

Connor just looks at him for a while. It’s hard to make out his expression. 

“Burgers?” Dylan asks when the silence has gone on long enough and he can hear that Mitch ate shit for the millionth time. “I’m hungry, bro.” 

Connor smiles. 

“Mitch!” he calls, looking away at last. “Try it with your foot a little further back, I think that’ll help. And Dylan wants burgers!” 

“Fuck Dylan’s fucking burgers,” Mitch calls back, but there’s the rattle of trucks and then a crow of surprise and triumph and Dylan grins up at the deep blue evening sky.

-/-

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Marner’s shit will expand to fill all available space. Dylan proves this by tripping over the pair of ratty, smoothie-stained Vans Mitch left square in the middle of Dylan's motherfucking hallway and nearly putting his head through a wall.

“ _Marner,_ ” he barks, slamming open the door to his room. 

“Bro,” Mitch says and doesn't even look up from his phone. He probably fucking texting fucking Davo, the fucker. “Chill.”

“Stop leaving your shit everywhere,” Dylan says and throws the shoe that had attempted to murder him at Mitch. Mitch doesn’t look up from his phone. 

It kind of hits him at stupid times, just how like… how he doesn’t know. How he doesn’t know what’s going on with Mitch, how something seriously fucked up must be happening, and how Mitch isn’t telling him about it. How he can’t tell Connor about it. Out of nowhere like a punch to the gut, like picking a fight with Tom Wilson. 

“But you always pick my shit up for me,” Mitch tells him. He’s still just texting away, paying no attention to how Dylan’s been staring at him for a little too long like a weirdo. Dylan’s gut is all twisty and gross feeling. He swallows. 

“I’m gonna throw this shoe out the window,” he warns. Mitch glances up at him through his lashes. 

“Will not,” he says, sounding very certain of that fact. 

Which is stupid of him, frankly. It’s like he doesn’t know Dylan at all. 

“I cannot fucking believe you just did that,” Mitch says a moment later, staring at him. Dylan admires how far out into his mom’s flowerbeds he’d gotten Mitch’s shoe. The smoothie stains blend right into the bright flowers. His arc had been _choice_. 

“I literally warned you,” he says. Mitch concedes the point gracefully and grumbles his way through getting up to scope where Dylan had landed his shoe like an old man. 

“Damn,” he says. “You got that pretty far.” 

“I know,” Dylan says proudly. “You gonna go get it?” 

“Nah,” Mitch says and heads back to sprawl out on Dylan’s bed. He looks so comfy and Dylan restrains a McDavid-esque impulse to go cuddle up to him. “It’ll still be there later probably.” 

“Unless the dogs get it,” Dylan points out. Mitch shrugs. Dylan gives in to impulse and goes to cuddle up.

-/-

Hall pushes the door open and Dylan tenses all over like some kind of primal instinct.

Freddie steps up to the counter, leans his elbows on it, and just like… _looks_ at Hall. 

Hall pauses for a second and then backs out and closes the door behind him without a word. 

Freddie stands back up and turns back to his blender. It’s a delicate lavender and Freddie’s been spooning things into it from the backpack he has stashed under the counter. Dylan hasn’t managed to get a good look into it yet but he suspects black magic. It’s definitely nothing they should be putting in the work blenders but _Dylan_ isn’t gonna be the one to say anything. 

“Whatcha making?” he asks after a few minutes of silence. 

“Calling it the Disappointing Your Mother,” Freddie says and puts in a single raspberry. “Try some?” 

“I think,” Dylan says slowly, “I’m gonna pass this time.” 

“Suit yourself,” Freddie says with a shrug and hits blend.

-/-

It's a beautiful summer evening and Dylan's nailed the frontside disaster six times in a row and has awarded himself a break to just sit and fuck around while Mitch does- something, Dylan thinks he might be trying to invent a trick again.

He has fond memories of Connor trying to break the news to Mitch delicately that the trick he'd just invented was in the second Tony Hawk game. Mitch had gone such a killer shade of magenta. He's having a good time watching Mitch trip every two seconds and swear at his board under his breath. 

Dylan looks down for less than a second as Mitch climbs the ramp again. Just a second, he swears, just to check his phone to see if Davo’s texted about being able to get free for the evening. 

“Fuck- _shit_ ,” Mitch shouts and there’s the hiss of wheels skidding and Dylan jerks up in time to see Mitch take a header down the ramp. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he shouts back, on his feet immediately and skidding down the ramp after him. Mitch is a crumpled little heap on the cement, his board rolling slowly away towards the gutter, and Dylan can feel panic rising in the back of his throat. 

“Shit, shit,” he hisses and hits his knees next to Mitch. Mitch is groaning, a low pained noise, and slowly curling up around himself like it hurts to move. “Fuck, Mitch.” 

“Christ, shit,” Mitch snaps back but he isn’t screaming and he lets Dylan carefully roll him over so he can see. 

“Stop being such a baby,” Dylan tells him but he can’t put any sting into it because he’s too relieved that Mitch is alive and conscious and glaring at him with clear, un-concussed eyes. 

“I’m _dying_ ,” Mitch gasps at him, and he’s bleeding from big scrapes on both hands and from where he’s clutching his knee but it’s not so much blood that Dylan thinks he should worry about it and there’s definitely no bones sticking out anywhere and he’s grinning a little bit. He’s okay. “Have some fucking sympathy, Stromer.” 

Dylan finally catches his breath. His chest hurt and he’s gonna have bruises on his knees from how hard he’d dropped to get to Mitch so fast. His chest feels tight and scared and like- fuck, Jesus. Mitch is okay. Dylan’s heart is beating way too fast. 

“You’re such a non, Marner,” he pants. “Haven’t seen a wipeout that bad since the Leafs were in the playoffs.” 

Mitch forgets about his knee to try to strangle him and he gets a gruesome bloody handprint on Dylan’s shirt but the tight ugly feeling in Dylan’s chest is all gone.

-/-

Mitch is so slick inviting everyone over to Dylan’s house he doesn’t even realize it’s happening until Connor’s pulling out of the Taco Bell drive through with a lapful of hot sauce packets and burritos and Mitch is hanging all over the back of Dylan’s seat.

“You have Call of Duty, right?” he asks casually and that’s that, they’re headed to Dylan’s. 

They haven’t been back to Mitch’s all summer, and for most of the year before that too when Dylan thinks back. He stuffs a nacho in his mouth to give himself something else to do than consider the implications of that. He’s pretty sure Mitch would rather he didn’t. 

Laying around on his bed committing cruel and unusual acts to their stock of burritos and arguing lazily over the hot sauce packets and whether they want to play Call of Duty or Mario Kart is always good though. He relaxes, lets Connor and Mitch’s deeply one-sided bickering wash over him and tries hard not to burp up bean and beef burrito because he might have eaten that last one a little too quickly. 

“Let Dylan decide, it’s his TV,” Connor says at last, which Dylan knows is a completely transparent attempt to get Dylan to tag in and stop Mitch from steamrolling them right into Mario Party. Mitch always tries to get them to play Mario Party because it’s the one he can beat them all in. 

“Dude, I don’t give a shit as long as it’s not Mario Party.” Dylan sits up to say because his stomach’s settled down a little bit and honestly, he could go for another nacho. Mitch makes a predictable annoyed noise. Dylan cheerfully ignores him and scoops up some queso on a chip. 

There’s a big smear of cheesy bean filling next to Connor’s mouth and Dylan’s about to say something or maybe stealthily try to get his phone out to Snapchat it when Mitch snorts and leans over. 

“Y’got something,” he mumbles and thumbs at the burrito filling. Connor solemnly holds still and lets him, watching him with big serious eyes like only Connor can. Dylan knows firsthand how hard it is to focus, pinned under that kind of stare. It’s amazing to Dylan that Mitch manages not to accidentally poke Connor in the eye or something in the process of getting fucking _burrito filling_ off his face.

Objectively it is gross as hell and Dylan should be mocking the shit out off both of them. 

In reality, he can’t look away. It’s not like, new to him, wanting to touch Connor. He wants to touch Connor all the time. It makes sense he’s a little jealous. He should- He tries to swallow and it doesn’t really work, just clicks uselessly in his throat and makes him want to choke a little. 

It’s kind of new, wanting Mitch to like… touch him. Like that. Gently. 

New and _incredibly_ fucked up, what the _fuck?_

“Are you gonna fuckin’ lick his face or something?” he demands and has to clear his throat like a douchebag. Mitch turns to try to elbow him and Connor rolls his eyes and Dylan manages to catch his breath but his heart is still beating just… way too fast.

-/-

Freddie is dating the like, best player in the CWHL which Dylan always somehow always manages to forget up until she has a break in her season and Freddie disappears for a week to go have terrifyingly athletic sex and express a visible emotion or whatever it is Freddie does. It leaves JT scrambling to fill in the gaps in the schedule and they all end up on some weird shifts.

Which is how Mitch ends up meeting Gym Brad for the first time. 

“How can I help ya?” Dylan hears and looks up and then has to ever so gently hipcheck Mitch out of the way because there is no way in hell he’s going to pass up the chance to look longingly into Gym Brad’s eyes while he rings up the frankly kind of boring smoothie. 

“Hi,” he breathes and covertly wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans. He’s a fucking mess, _Jesus_. “Your usual?”

Mitch makes an incoherently disgruntled noise behind him. Dylan ignores it. 

“My usual,” Gym Brad confirms. 

After a moment Mitch pokes him in the side and then gives him a _look_ and Dylan realizes that he is not, in fact, Freddie. 

“Peach pineapple with whey protein,” Dylan says belatedly to Mitch and smiles winningly at Gym Brad. He’s really used to Freddie just kind of knowing everything psychically. Gym Brad just smiles back complacently, apparently not bothered at all by the violence with which Mitch begins to throw fruit into the blender. 

The smoothie does not look quite as smooth as it could when Mitch shoves it across the counter. Dylan decides not to say anything. 

“See you around,” Gym Brad says and winks goofily as he scoops up his Peachy Pineapple Persuasion and like, wow. Dylan is so in love it’s disgusting. 

“Have a good day,” Dylan says helplessly and does his level best not to sigh in an excessively lovesick way as Gym Brad turns to go. Like, hate to see you go but love to watch you leave for _real_. He can feel Mitch glaring at him and he does not care at all. 

“His nose is fucking huge,” Mitch says meanly as soon as the door swings shut behind Gym Brad. Dylan shakes his head at him and pops open the till to straighten out the bills. 

“I think it gives him character,” he says because he’s feeling magnanimous and has decided not to comment on how people with mouths as big as Mitch’s are living in glass houses, with regard to commenting on other people’s faces. 

“He’s probably a douche,” Mitch mumbles, because he is a hypocrite. 

“You’re a douche and I still like you,” he says patronizingly and he’s expecting Mitch to flick him in the ear or something but there’s just silence. When he glances over Mitch’s face is torn between something Dylan is pretty sure is smugness and irritation. Dylan rolls his eyes. Whatever Mitch’s problem is, it isn’t _Dylan’s_ problem.

-/-

Connor is home doing some kind of family dinner thing but Dylan is feeling antsy and Mitch is always up for it so they end up at the skate park, practicing silly ollies and fucking up simple heelflips. It usually helps.

Right now, it’s not helping much. They streetlights are snapping on across the street and he’s skinned his elbow and Mitch is just sitting at the edge of a ramp and watching him glide back and forth. He looks tired. 

It’s driving Dylan a little crazy. 

“Bro, you wanna get some McDonalds?” Mitch asks idly and Dylan leans into a twisty little bullshit ollie to face him. 

It’s hard to make out his face under the stark street lights but he thinks Mitch looks pretty chill. Somehow it doesn’t make him feel as good as it should. He’s still restless and miserable and uncomfortable under his skin. 

“I don’t know,” he says and nudges himself back and forth for something to do. It’s not helping. He doesn’t know why it isn’t helping. “Maybe. I dunno.” 

Mitch snorts at him. He’s rolling his board back and forth, shitty wheels squeaking a little bit. 

“Burgers, bro,” he prompts. “You don’t want burgers?” 

“You’re spending too much time with Matthews,” Dylan says and looks down at his board, rolling back and forth under him. “McDonalds, what the fuck? Are you some kinda fuckin’ American?” 

Mitch snorts at him. 

“Fuck you,” he says easily. “What, you wanna get some Timmies? Fuck off.” 

“So when did you move into Marty’s?” Dylan asks because he just- he can’t fucking stand it anymore. 

Silence falls like a guillotine. 

“Dylan,” Mitch says at last. It falls into the silence like a rock and doesn’t break it at all. Dylan hauls in a deep breath. His heart is beating so fast. 

“Mitch,” he answers. “Jesus, dude.” 

“I’m not staying with him all the time,” Mitch says, climbing to his feet, and his face is all- closed off, blank and empty like Dylan’s never really seen it before. “Just, y’know. It’s not a big deal, Strome. Leave it.” 

“Jesus, Marner,” Dylan says. His voice is all choked up in his throat, high and pitchy. 

“ _Leave_ it,” Mitch repeats. He sounds like a stranger. 

“He’s- Marty's with the Tigers, they’re in the off-season,” Dylan realizes suddenly. “Fuck, I mean… What’re you gonna do when they start the season and he leaves?” 

Mitch rocks back on his heels. His hands are in his pockets and with his hood up he looks like, like someone Dylan doesn’t know at all. A Mitch he’s never met before. He’s still not making any real expressions, not really, so still he might as well not even be there at all. 

“I’m warning you, Strome,” he says quietly. His voice cracks. “Leave it alone.” 

“Mitch,” Dylan begins and Mitch has him by the arm before he can finish his sentence. 

“Leave it _alone_ ,” Mitch hisses in his face, all hot breath and wild eyes, and then he’s running, his shoes slapping against concrete and then the rattle of trucks and he’s gone. 

The park is cold and echoing and empty and Dylan can’t breathe. There’s no air in the whole world. 

Fumbling his phone out of his pocket feels like the hardest thing he's ever done, like his fingers are suddenly disconnected from his body and his pants are too tight and he isn't, he's just not thinking too straight. He can't stop breathing fast and hard and he nearly drops his phone right onto the cement. He fucks up the number he's trying to dial over and over again.

“Dylan,” Connor’s voice comes in his ear, staticky and faint, and Dylan holds in a weird noise he absolutely refuses to label a sob. It’s not like he’s crying anyway, not like he’s some kind of wimpy bitch, it’s not fucking _like_ that. 

“Davo,” he says and the phone slips right out of his hand because he’s just- he goes scrambling after it, down on his knees on the cold cement, clutching it in numb fingers. “Connor? Connor, shit.” 

“Dylan?” Connor asks, and he sounds alarmed now, and Dylan swallows around how tight and aching his throat feels. He’s not going to cry. He’s not going to fucking cry. “Are you okay?” 

“Can you come get me?” Dylan croaks.

-/-

All of his shifts at the Smoothie Shack for the rest of the week are with Freddie and when he'd gotten the schedule he'd been kind of upset about it but he's not exactly complaining now. He doesn’t, like… know what to do.

He and Mitch haven’t had a serious fight since freshman year when they’d first been forced into detention together and both shown up with their shitty boards under their arms. The glorious discovery that they were both in trouble for skateboarding inside had made them basically instant friends. And also, the discovery that they both loved Connor to death but wanted desperately to do something about the tragedy that is and was his closet. 

He doesn’t really know _how_ to be in a fight with Mitch anymore, is what he's saying. 

At least Freddie has the good grace to quietly go about his weird as fuck smoothie business requiring no input from Dylan whatsoever. He’s making something but Dylan can’t really find it in himself to care. He props his elbows up on the till and stares out the window to the familiar noise of fruit plopping into yogurt base. 

Gym Brad pushes the door open and Dylan stands to somewhat lacking attention with a somewhat lacking customer service smile. 

“What can I getcha?” Dylan asks listlessly. 

Gym Brad frowns at him. 

“Long day at the office, bud?” he asks, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. Dylan doesn't even have the energy to be horny about the extremely generous gift of tickets to Gym Brad's gun show. It _sucks_.

“Y'know how it goes,” Dylan says nonsensically, but Gym Brad nods anyway. “Usual?” 

“You know what I like,” Gym Brad says with a wink and Dylan's dick doesn't even twitch. Dylan wonders idly as Freddie starts the blender behind him if having a fight with Mitch or whatever has somehow broken his cock. Which would suck, majorly.

“Gotcha,” is what he says. Gym Brad really frowns at him this time. 

“Doing alright, kiddo?” he asks and Dylan’s dick might be currently missing in action but his _heart_ just took a hit for damn sure. 

“Kiddo? I’m hurt, bro,” he gasps and puts a hand to his chest. Gym Brad snickers at him. 

“Seriously, though,” Gym Brad says and his smirk is fading into like, a genuine smile. “You doing alright? I’d hate to get some other douchebag on the weekends. Wouldn’t even know my order.” 

“Freddie could take care of you,” Dylan scoffs to cover for the fact that he’s experiencing a slight heart attack at the concern. Gym Brad just laughs anyway, leaning in conspiratorially. Dylan can smell his antiperspirant. It’s kind of like pine trees. 

“Tell you something?” he asks and Dylan leans in too, dick finally starting to take an interest, thank God. “Freddie kinda scares me a little, dude.” 

Dylan bounces back with a laugh. 

“He scares us all,” he tells Gym Brad and Freddie snorts at them both, pointedly starting the blender. “I’m alright, though, seriously. Just going through some friend shit or whatever. Your usual?” 

Freddie’s watching him when Gym Brad saunters out the door with his Peachy Pineapple Persuasion, Whey Protein Boost included, waving behind him. Dylan waggles his eyebrows at him just because and then sticks out his tongue when Freddie just raises an eyebrow. 

“Think he’s finally falling for my charms,” he says. 

“Whatever you say, Stromer,” Freddie says tolerantly. “Wanna try this new one? I’m gonna call it the Peanut Butter Motherfucker.”

-/-

He’s used to going to the skate park after work. Usually with Mitch and most of the time Connor but right now he just… really doesn’t want to.

Mitch might be there. And if he isn’t, if it’s just Dylan rolling back and forth by himself and remembering how he’d fucked up so spectacularly, well. That doesn’t sound like much fun either. 

Sitting in the car that technically isn’t his outside Connor’s work and listening to System of a Down way too loudly and staring out the window isn’t much fun either. But like, at least no one can see him being a sad sack of shit. Plus, he can crank the volume as high as he wants and the only one that’ll be complaining is the person fitting him for his hearing aids when he’s sixty and deaf. 

He doesn’t have much to do. Connor won’t text him at work and Mitch hasn’t texted him at all in two days, and he’s pretty sure JT would have a heart attack if he went to bother Freddie at work. So he just sits in the car. 

Connor taps on the passenger window and startles the shit out of him. He cranks the volume back down and unlocks the door and studiously avoids Connor’s eyes. 

“Sorry I’m late,” he says quietly. Dylan shrugs and starts the car. 

“Didn’t notice,” he says honestly. 

He pulls out of the parking lot in silence. The radio’s still playing System of a Down but so low that the music is barely intelligible. 

“Skate park?” Connor asks when they’ve made it halfway down the street. Dylan shrugs and keeps his eyes fixed responsibly on the light. 

“I was thinking we could go back to my place,” he says. He knows his voice comes across nonchalant as fuck, so he doesn’t know why Connor makes a concerned face at that. “Watch a movie or something.” 

“Sure thing,” Connor agrees. It goes quiet again. 

It stays quiet up until they reach his room and Connor suggests the Lion King, which is how Dylan knows Connor’s feeling sorry for him. Disney movies are for when he’s feeling bad and needs something simple to watch. He doesn’t bother to argue about it. 

He also doesn’t object to Connor squirming over to put an arm around him for cuddles. He’s weak and it feels nice and frankly? He deserves it. 

“You know you can talk to me about it,” Connor says quietly as Simba sings along to Hakuna Matata and Dylan buries his face in his shoulder for a moment. Connor smells like Banana Boat and grass and faintly like fried chicken, his arm warm around Dylan’s shoulders. 

He hasn’t told Connor anything about what happened, nothing but a bare ‘me and Mitch got in a fight’ that Connor accepted without question because he’s the best. He hasn’t pried either, even though Dylan knows he’s talking to Mitch too and it has to suck, having your two best friends fight. 

“I know, Davo,” he says and pulls away to scrub his face with his hand. “I said I wouldn’t.” 

Connor’s watching him when he looks over again. There’s something about his expression, something almost but not really pained. A concentrating expression, eyes all big and dark like Dylan’s seen them go sometimes and really never can read. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Dylan admits and Connor blinks and that weird expression Dylan couldn’t read is gone. Connor smiles instead, a little bit sad. 

“I’m sure it’ll work out,” he says and pulls Dylan in a little closer. 

They finish the movie in silence and Connor lets him eat most of the pretzels. Dylan loves him.

-/-

Dylan is not expecting to answer his door at an unreasonable ten o’clock in the morning to find Auston Matthews wearing sunglasses and a bandana around his head and looking like an extremely shifty and hungover tool, but that is what he finds nonetheless.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says because he’s startled and Auston is like- he’s big, is all. A big dude. And unexpected. 

“Yo,” Auston says. Fucking Americans. 

“Auston, what the fuck?” Dylan says and peers around to be sure he’s not about to be pranked. He doesn’t think Mitch is the kind of angry that would mean sending Auston after him, but Auston and his weird little circle have always had a suspect sense of humor. After a moment he’s reasonably sure no one’s hiding in his mom’s flower beds or whatever, which… kind of leaves him even more confused than before. 

“We gotta talk,” Auston says, pushing his sunglasses up to perch on top of his head. He’s like, really obviously hungover. The bags under his eyes are legendary. 

“How do you know where I live?” Dylan asks blankly because, what?

“Listen,” Auston says and rolls his eyes. “Strome.” 

“No, I’m serious,” Dylan interrupts because _what?_ He and Matthews have never been friends. “How the fuck do you know where I live?” 

“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” Auston tells him, which is seriously not an answer. “Fuckin’ baffles me that Mitch thinks you’re so great but whatever.” 

“I knew you hated me!” Dylan says triumphantly and then frowns. “Hey, wait, fuck you.” 

“ _Strome_ ,” Auston snaps at him. “Seriously not why I’m here. Also what the fuck, I don’t hate you? What the hell is wrong with you.” 

“Fuck you,” Dylan says sulkily. “Stalker.” 

Auston scrubs his face with both hands. For a second he looks alarmingly like JT. 

“Dude,” he says, muffled by his palms. 

“Fine,” Dylan relents. Not because Auston is still giving off heavy Mo-vibes or anything, because that would be ridiculous. Just to get Auston off his doorstep and on his merry Dylan-hating way. “What are you here for, then?” 

Auston eyes him with a level of suspicion that’s deeply unfair considering that of the two of them only Auston has shown up uninvited to the other’s house. _Dylan_ has no idea where Auston lives and after this there’s zero chance he’ll ever want to. 

“I get that there’s some shit going on with you and Mitch,” he says when he’s finally finished staring like a crazy person. “And McDavid too, I guess? I don’t wanna know.” 

“None of your goddamn business,” Dylan says on reflex at Connor’s name. Auston ignores him. 

“But Mitch has been miserable for like, a week,” he says, tone dogged. “It’s a fucking drag. I had to babysit his drunk ass for hours last night. Fix your shit.” 

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do, Matthews,” Dylan says because- shit. 

He doesn’t know what to do with that. With knowing that Mitch is… miserable? Because of Dylan?

“You’re such a fucking weirdo,” Auston says but he’s turning to leave so Dylan just flips him off and watches to be sure he actually pulls out of the driveway. Because he seriously doesn’t remember ever having Auston over or giving him the address, and he suspects Mitch has no idea Auston was going to talk to Dylan. Seriously, stalker shit for _real_.

-/-

JT stops by the counter on the way to his office and squints at Dylan. Dylan squints right back. He clocked in like two minutes ago and Freddie isn't even here yet so there is no possible way he's fucked anything up yet. He hasn't even touched the register.

“What?” he demands when the silence has lasted a whole minute. JT makes a face somehow even more pained than his usual talking-to-Dylan face. 

“If you want to talk about it...” he says slowly. 

Dylan stares at him. 

JT stares back. Eventually, he nods and wanders back to his office. 

“Are you breathing?” Freddie asks in his ear and Dylan jumps about a mile. 

“ _Jesus,_ ” he hisses and clutches his chest. Freddie rolls his eyes and heads to claim his usual blender. Dylan watches him for a moment.

“Are you gonna try and make me talk about it?” he demands because he's gonna shut that shit down immediately, if so. It's like a man can't quietly stew in isolated misery and anguish anymore, god _damn_.

“God no,” Freddie says and doesn't look up from fiddling with the blender settings Dylan distinctly remembers being warned not to touch on pain of immediate blending. “I don't give a shit.”

“Oh,” Dylan says. “Good.” 

“Good,” Freddie echoes peaceably. “I had to throw out all our kale, Nylander left it out last night. Don't let anyone order any.” 

“Thank god,” Dylan mumbles.

-/-

JT schedules him with Mitch next week because JT is heartless and the worst. Dylan contemplates quitting before Connor’s gently disappointed eyebrows remind him not to be a weenie and also that Dylan really does want to make up with Mitch. Quitting just to avoid Mitch would be… probably not great for that.

It still sucks and he drags his way through his morning routine so he has to sprint through the Smoothie Shack doors to clock in on time. JT looks at him all judgmental but it’s so much like his regular face that Dylan feels perfectly justified in ignoring it. 

Mitch is already there. He doesn’t say a word as Dylan shrugs on his ugly uniform apron and signs into the register. 

He’s looking down at his feet when Dylan glances over. 

The store is so quiet. Dylan bites down on the inside of his cheek and wants to say something but can’t think of what to say. It’s the same suffocating silence as the skate park but worse because Mitch is right there this time, carefully not looking at him. 

A woman comes in with two kids in tow and orders two kid’s size smoothies and a Pineapple Persuasion. Dylan smiles at her to try and make up for how the silence is probably really uncomfortable to be in even for her. She doesn’t really buy it, if the way she eyes him as they all leave is any indication. 

It leaves the same uncomfortable silence. Dylan contemplates just slamming his head down on the register. He misses Freddie. 

Another guy comes in, smelling dank as fuck and obviously flying so high he can see Saturn. He spends about ten minutes ordering something super complicated and Dylan doesn’t say a word about how Mitch spends the whole time the man isn’t looking spooning yogurt and peanut butter in. The man takes it, pays, and wanders out without taking a sip. 

“Risky,” Dylan comments and then winces. 

Mitch shrugs. 

“He won’t notice,” he says, and they subside back into silence. 

Dylan goes on break half an hour later having said maybe thirty total words, only six of them to Mitch. He stares down at his phone for the whole ten minutes, miserably contemplating calling Connor just to talk to someone. In the end he decides he’s being way too pathetic and he doesn’t have the time anyway, heading back inside to clock back in. 

He settles back into his spot by the till. It doesn’t seem like Mitch has moved at all. Dylan fixes his gaze out the window and zones out. 

“You didn’t tell Connor,” Mitch says and Dylan has to really work not to jump about a mile. 

“Uhh,” he says when his heart has finally stopped racing. “No. No, I mean. I said I wouldn’t.” 

Mitch is just looking at him. The moment stretches out all quiet and awkward and Dylan’s chest is aching because Mitch is one of his best friends and this- this _sucks_. 

“Thank you,” Mitch says at last and looks down at his ugly, smoothie-stained Vans and Dylan is really sick of this. He’s sick of Mitch looking miserable and he’s sick of missing him and he’s sick of how much it sucks, because it sucks so much. 

“Auston showed up at my house,” he says and Mitch jolts up to look at him, wide-eyed and shocked. Which, nice to have it confirmed that Auston really was a total stalker for knowing Dylan’s home address because Dylan really hadn’t ever given it to him and apparently Mitch never had either. 

“Fuck, really?” Mitch asks. 

“Yeah.” Dylan leans back against the counter. “Just like, showed up to yell at me for making you sad or whatever.” 

“How does he know where you live?” Mitch demands. It’s so normal that for a second Dylan almost forgets they’re fighting and says something rude about Auston. He swallows it back down, though. Mitch probably likes Auston a little better than Dylan right now. 

“That’s what I asked,” Dylan says instead and rolls his eyes. “He wasn’t like, super informative.” 

“He’s weird,” Mitch says with a shrug. He’s looking at Dylan and like, Dylan might be trying but he also needs to be true to himself, and he knows himself well enough to know there’s only so long he can stop himself from saying something really rude about Auston. 

“Matthews is such a dick,” he says. Mitch laughs at him. It sounds shaky but sincere. 

“He is,” he agrees. 

“I’m sorry,” Dylan says, and he hadn’t exactly planned on that coming out of his mouth but it isn’t like it isn’t true so he doesn’t try to take it back. 

Mitch looks at him for a long moment. 

“I’m sorry too,” he says at last. 

“I’m sorry I pushed you about all this shit,” Dylan elaborates because like _hell_ Mitch is going to one-up him at apologizing. Dylan is going to rock the shit out of apologizing for shit. “I was just, y’know. Worried. Scared. Whatever. I shouldn’t have pushed you about it.” 

Mitch gets a hand on his wrist which is like, god. Dylan can’t stop looking down at his shoes and then up at Mitch and back down again. It’s compulsive. 

“It’s okay,” Mitch says, soft as anything. 

“I missed you,” Dylan admits. He is a sappy moron and he can’t help himself. Mitch grins at him and his eyes are going suspiciously red like maybe he’s also feeling the need to scrub at his face to hide that he’s maybe about to cry. 

“You’re such a loser,” Mitch says because he is a dick. “I missed you too, damn.” 

“Bite me,” Dylan says happily and wonders if he can go in for the hug yet. 

Mitch beats him to it, the dick. 

“‘M really sorry,” he mumbles against Dylan’s shoulder. Dylan throws his arms around him and clings as tight as he can. 

JT coughs at them from the doorway to the office and Mitch shoves him away so hard he nearly goes over into the yogurt. He catches himself at the last possible second with a hand on the glass barrier and stares accusingly at JT. 

JT looks at the two of them for a moment and then withdraws back into the office. 

“Way to ruin a fucking moment,” Mitch mumbles to him and he strangles out a laugh. 

“Fuck,” he agrees and reaches out compulsively to get a hand on Mitch’s arm because Mitch _lets him_. “Are… Are we good?” 

Mitch grins at him. It looks watery and happy and like he’s maybe about to cry a little bit but like it’s not in a bad way. 

“Yeah, yeah we’re good,” he agrees. And how is Dylan supposed to resist that? He isn’t, is the answer, so he goes in for the hug again because Mitch is not beating him at it twice. Mitch totally clings right back too, a tight bear hug so Dylan can feel how his breath shudders a little bit. 

“I’ll explain,” Mitch mutters and Dylan clings even tighter. Mitch is pressing his face into Dylan’s shoulder so his voice comes out muffled but so close together it’s impossible for him not to hear. “And, and tell Connor. Just… gimme a while.” 

“‘Kay,” Dylan says and holds on for a while.

-/-

Freddie takes one look at Dylan their next shift and turns to the blender to start throwing things in. Dylan leaves him to it because he suspects he doesn’t want to know, and Freddie will tell him if he needs to.

“Here,” Freddie says after twenty minutes of Dylan leaning on the till and humming along to the radio and inspecting his nail beds have passed, and shoves a full-size cup of something a deep blue-purple into Dylan's hands. It smells alarmingly like birthday cake. Dylan hadn’t even heard him start the blender. “I'm calling it the Congrats on Getting Your Shit Together.”

“I knew you cared,” Dylan says, grinning up at Freddie as he takes the cup. It tastes like blueberry and birthday cake and Dylan really has no idea how Freddie managed that but like, killer. 

Freddie snorts at him. 

“You caught me, Strome,” he says dryly, but he's smiling just a little bit. “I like you. Don't tell anyone.”

“I won't,” Dylan says happily and sips his special smoothie.

-/-

“Oh man, you have so much shit in your fridge,” Mitch says. He’s muffled by how his whole upper body is inside the fridge. Dylan puts his head down on the island counter and giggles helplessly. “Oh man, oh my fucking god, Dylan, _Dylan_.”

“Calm down, dude,” Dylan cautions, breathless with how he can’t stop giggling. He’s way too fucking high for this, holy shit. “Holy shit, it’s just- oh man, throw me a juice box.” 

Connor is sitting on the island counter with a bag of baby carrots in his hands. He’s just kind of looking at them, glassy-eyed. Like he’s like, communing with them. 

A box of apple juice slides across the counter and bumps into Dylan’s elbow. He grabs it happily and begins laboriously trying to stab the straw into the little hole. 

“Lunch meat,” Mitch says, muffled again because he’s back to digging through Dylan’s fridge. “You have so many kinds, fuck.” 

“I want pretzels,” Dylan says sadly and sips his apple juice. Connor looks up from his carrots to pat him clumsily on the arm. 

“Oh, yes, oh yes, I am a genius,” Mitch says and stands up. He’s holding the packages of turkey and ham, a tub of cream cheese, a container of fake bacon from Dylan’s mom he suspects might be a little bit expired, and a tub of mildly wilted baby spinach. “I am a fucking genius, boys, _holy_ shit.” 

“Oh,” Dylan breathes. “Holy shit, Mitch.” 

Something cold and clammy finds his hand and he jumps and looks down to find Connor’s slipping a baby carrot into his hand. 

“For you,” he says solemnly.

-/-

Gym Brad pushes the door open and Dylan straightens up happily, and then somehow finds a way to straighten up some more when he holds it open for the man behind him.

“Yo, Dyls,” Gym Brad says and waves. 

“Damn,” Freddie says in an undertone. Dylan opens his mouth to say something and nothing at all comes out. 

The way Gym Brad smiles at the dude with him is soppy and sweet and so in love it’s kind of disgusting, and Dylan feels his _heart break_ , he really does. 

“This is Patrice,” Gym Brad says and Dylan doesn’t even have time to think anything mean about Patrice because he’s finally getting a real look at this dude and Patrice turns this smile on him that’s like- 

Jesus motherfucking Christ. Angels weep. Dylan thinks he’s about to have a heart attack. He didn’t know people so pretty like, _existed_ in real life. He’d always sort of thought they just existed in fictional places like Jersey Shore or L.A.

“This is Dylan,” Gym Brad supplies to Patrice, turning back to him to gesture at Dylan, which is good because Dylan has just noticed his mouth is still hanging open. He quickly snaps it shut and hopes desperately he didn’t start drooling or anything. He can feel Freddie’s stare like lasers against the side of his head. “He keeps me in smoothies.” 

Patrice laughs. God in fucking Heaven. Dylan is about to have a heart attack he’s pretty sure. 

“Thank you for taking care of him,” he says to Dylan and he has a fucking _French accent_. It’s kind of faint and also Québécois, Dylan is pretty sure, but _still_. 

He’s about to die of boner. 

“Yeah, uh,” he croaks and clears his throat quickly. “What can I get for you? Anything?” 

“What do you recommend?” Patrice asks and Dylan spends about five minutes more or less coherently explaining the best things on the board and trying not to breathe through his mouth too much before Patrice finally has mercy and just orders one of Brad’s usuals as well. 

“But if I could get some kale with that? If it’s not too much trouble,” he says with a smile and Dylan wonders absently if there’s surgery to fix the fact he’s about to swallow his tongue. 

“No trouble,” he mumbles and conveniently forgets to charge him for it. Freddie is moving around behind him to make the smoothies but somehow Dylan can still feel his stare, phantom on the back of his neck. 

Patrice finally follows Gym Brad out the door with a wave at Dylan. Dylan slumps down and shoves both hands through his hair, ignoring the fact that Mitch has told him multiple times doing that leaves him looking like he’s been recently electrocuted. 

“Jesus Christ,” he says. His voice comes out all faint. 

Freddie laughs at him. 

“Dude,” Dylan says and lets his head fall back to stare blindly up at the ceiling. “I'm so glad I never told Brad about my dick. He has a _boyfriend_. That would have been so not chill.”

A sample cup full of something alarmingly purple and smelling like blueberries and a little like kale is shoved under his nose. 

“Try this one,” Freddie tells him. He’s not laughing out loud anymore but he’s laughing at Dylan on the inside, Dylan can tell. “S’called a You Wish You Knew How to Spell Ménage À Trois.” 

“Fuck you, like I’d say that if I could just say threesome,” Dylan grumbles but he drinks the smoothie anyway. It doesn’t taste like kale at all. It’s actually kind of delicious because Freddie is some kind of smoothie genius, the bastard.

-/-

Dylan is carefully wiping down the Employee of The Month Benn, with the due respect it deserves. Connor is sitting at his feet, fucking around on his phone and occasionally nudging him to look at some Facebook-type outdated meme bullshit because he's secretly a forty-year-old. Mitch is laying on the freshly mopped floor and staring up at the ceiling.

“Yo, Davo,” Mitch says, apropos of nothing. When Dylan glances back he's pulling a crumpled flyer out of his pocket and flicking it into Connor's lap. 

“You have fucking _got_ to stop hanging out with the Americans,” Dylan tells him absently, craning to look at what the flyer says. 

“Marty gave that to me to give you,” Mitch says, ignoring him. 

Connor smooths it out in his lap. It’s tacky as fuck, all bright colors and clip art graphics, but Dylan’s eyes snag on the word _prize_ at the bottom of the page and a number that is like, astonishingly big for how tacky the design is. Obviously, no one had spent any of the prize budget on a graphic designer. 

“This is a skateboarding competition,” Connor says slowly and Mitch grins. 

“Yeah, dude,” he says and slaps Connor’s knee for emphasis. “I don’t know that me or Dylan are good enough yet but I thought you’d have a shot. Marty agrees, obviously.” 

Connor doesn’t say anything. He’s just staring down at the flyer. 

“Bro,” Dylan says and nudges Connor with his shoe. “Mitch is right, that would be pretty dope.” 

“I don’t know,” Connor says. His shoulders are drawing together, up near his ears. 

Dylan frowns and exchanges confused glances with Mitch. He tosses his dirty rag in the general direction of the counter and pops a squat next to Connor, tilting his head to look at his face. It’s pinched, a conflicted expression like he’s fighting with himself over something. 

“What’s up, Davo?” Mitch asks, shuffling over on Connor’s other side. “You have plenty of time to sign up, it’s next month.” 

“I mean,” Connor says. He still sounds a little weird. He’s worrying the corner of the flyer between thumb and forefinger. “I, you know. My mom won’t like it. I don’t know.” 

“Davo,” Dylan says. “You love doing this. You’re totally good enough, dude, really.” 

Connor looks up at him. His eyes are wide and like- haunted, maybe, although Dylan instantly has to roll his eyes at himself for being a dramatic asshole. Connor doesn’t look happy, though, is the thing. He doesn’t look as excited as he should. 

Dylan is working very, very hard not to be angry with Connor’s family. 

“Maybe you two should go,” Connor offers, sounding kind of like just the idea of it is being dragged out of him with hooks. “You can, um, tell me about it and, it’ll be fun?” 

“There is no way we’re good enough,” Mitch snorts. 

“Hey,” Dylan objects mildly, because he thinks they might at least do like _kind of_ well. They wouldn’t probably come in dead last at least. 

“I can’t even reliably pop shove-it and Dylan’s putting the disaster in frontside disaster,” Mitch continues like Dylan hadn’t said anything. Dylan has to concede both points. 

“Well,” Connor says and then doesn’t continue, presumably because he also can’t argue either point. 

“Seriously,” Mitch says, and nudges Connor’s arm. “No harm in trying, right?” 

“Think about it,” Dylan agrees and gets laboriously to his feet so he can kick Connor in the hip cheerfully. “But no worries.”

“...Kay,” Connor says quietly. He’s clutching the flyer like he’s scared someone’s going to take it away but Dylan doesn’t say anything else about it and neither does Mitch.

-/-

Connor still hasn’t stopped looking at Dylan and Mitch together out of the corner of his eye and smiling like a freakazoid, like he thinks he’s being subtle or something. Dylan thinks it’s the height of loserdom - and kind of insanely sweet, but catch him telling Davo so - but far be it from him to ruin Connor’s fun.

It’s nice anyway, to be in the car together again driving around aimlessly and pretending they’re not going to end up in the Walmart parking lot yet again, debating whether Dylan’s pretzel addiction needs an intervention or not. It’s nice to be all good again. 

So, yeah, he’ll let Connor smile to himself. Whatever makes the nerd happy. 

“Let’s hit up Walmart,” Mitch says. Dylan could set his fucking clock by it. 

“I’m getting pretzels,” he says, because first of all _he’s gonna get some fucking pretzels_ but second of all the way Connor glances at him in the mirror and rolls his eyes is worth it. 

“Dylan,” Connor says, disapproving, but he’s already making the turn that’ll get them to the Walmart in another five minutes. 

They end up getting pretzels, and chips for Mitch and some kind of veggie straw thing for Connor because he’s weird. Connor doesn’t even comment too much as Dylan’s paying about how much he spends on buying pretzels. Which like, whatever. He has a job. 

He drops crumbs all over Connor’s seats in revenge when they get back to the car, though. 

“Connor,” Mitch says, muffled by how he’s nearly chest-deep into Connor’s glove box. “You have the fuckin’ Best of ABBA in here, holy shit.” 

“I do?” Connor asks and he sounds genuinely confused but Mitch is extracting himself with the scuffed jewel case in his hand and the airbrushed faces smiling up at them are unmistakable.

“Dude,” Dylan says gleefully. “ _Bitch_.” 

“Guys,” Connor tries to interject. 

“Blast this shit!” Mitch says right over him and knocks Connor’s weak attempts to stop him from putting the CD in out of the way. “Mama fuckin’ _Mia_.” 

“Guys,” Connor complains but Mitch already has his hand on the volume knob. 

“Mitch, I _love_ you,” Dylan says gleefully. 

Mitch makes a face at him for a second and then punches him in the leg. 

“You too, loser,” he says. Dylan absolutely does not feel his breath catch as he clutches the spot on his thigh that will absolutely be a big Mitch’s-knuckles-shaped bruise tomorrow. 

The beat is already starting. Connor’s head is in his hands. The speakers are crackling with distortion and Mitch rolls the window down. 

“ _Mama mia_ ,” he bellows across the parking lot. He's not even attempting the right register. A nice-looking middle-aged lady in the far row hastily shoves her kid into her minivan, looking over her shoulder at Mitch with wide-eyed terror. “ _Here I go again!_ ” 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Connor chokes out, thready and high pitched. 

“ _My, my,_ ” Mitch continues and he's hanging half out the window, head tipped up towards the sunset. His voice keeps cracking. “ _How can I resist ya!_ ”

Connor's laughing so hard and like, really, how is Dylan supposed to resist this? He can't. 

“ _Mama mia,_ he shouts along and Dylan falls back in his seat to grin at him. 

“ _DOES IT SHOW AGAIN?_ ” they shout at each other and Connor is laughing so hard at them he's crying a little bit and like, yeah, yeah.

-/-

“I think,” Connor says and hauls in a deep breath. Mitch looks at him and Dylan does too because Connor sounds like, _serious_. “I think I want to do that competition. I think I wanna try.”

“Oh my god,” Mitch says. Connor blushes, hot pink and splotchy across his cheekbones. Dylan stares even harder. 

“I want to,” he says, more quietly. Uncertain, abruptly, which um, _no?_

“Dude!” Dylan crows and throws himself at Connor. “Holy shit! Yes, dude!” 

Mitch slams into his back a moment later and both of their hands are in his hair at once, scrubbing out the careful comb tracks until Connor’s a laughing, blushing mess. Dylan isn’t even horny about it, that’s how happy he is. Jesus, his cheeks are gonna start hurting in a minute he’s grinning so big. 

“You’re gonna fucking kill it! Oh my fucking god,” he crows right in Connor’s face and Connor grins back, big and stupid-looking. 

“You guys are going to be there,” Connor says and it's only the little waver at the end that gives away he's anything other than totally certain. 

“Tom Wilson himself couldn't keep me away,” Mitch says solemnly. 

“I'm going to paint my face for you,” Dylan agrees and Connor's going _so_ red. 

“Boys,” Mitch declares, thumping them both on the back. “It is a fucking pool night!” 

Connor makes a pained face totally undercut by how he can’t stop the smile from sneaking out underneath it. Dylan shakes them both in agreement. It’s a fucking pool night alright, goddamn.

-/-

They’ve broken into the shitty old public pool a bunch of times before, sometimes just them and sometimes with other people. It’s practically an honorable tradition, climbing the fence and winching back the pool cover and luxuriating in some night swimming.

In Dylan’s opinion if the city wanted people to stop doing it they should replace the single broken security camera. Connor is, predictably, still nervous about it. 

“C'mon, Davo!” Dylan calls from the inside of the fence. 

Connor hesitates. 

“Don't be a fucking _hero_ , McDavid!” Mitch calls, already shrouded in the darkness beyond the pool house. He’s working the rusty old pool cover winch, squeaky in the night air. Dylan grins at Connor's torn expression. 

“C'mon,” Dylan coaxes. Connor's biting his lip. It's kind of distracting. Dylan's voice comes out way too soft, shit. “It'll be fine, dude, I pinky swear.”

Connor looks at him, eyes all like… shiny and wet and big. 

“Promise?” he asks quietly. Somewhere behind him Dylan hears the patter of footsteps and then the sharp slap of Mitch cannonballing into the pool. 

“Like I'd break a pinky swear,” Dylan tells Connor, and tries not to smile like a complete non. He's not sure he succeeds. “Shit’s _sacred_ , bro.”

Connor smiles back at him all watery and gets his shoe wedged in the fence to start climbing. 

The pool lights are down low and it leaves Mitch a skinny shape at the far end, indistinct paddling his way back towards them. Dylan just watches for a second, idly toeing his shoes off, and laughs when Connor pokes cautiously at the water. 

“Dare you to jump in,” he says and Connor looks at him and then _smiles_ , this bright little thing that just snatches the breath right out of his lungs, and then he’s hopping into the water with all his clothes on and Dylan is hopping up and down in place. 

“Davo!” he crows when Connor paddles up for air, hair plastered to his forehead and snorting up water like a loser. “Davo you fucking hero, oh my god!” 

Connor grins up at him and Dylan loves him so much. 

“I win,” he says. His is such a dork. Dylan can’t even breathe. 

“Aww, fuck, Davo,” Mitch says, finally make his paddling way over. “Why are you wearing your jeans in here, Jesus.” 

“Dyls dared me,” Connor says blithely, hooking his elbows over the side and smiling up at the sky with his eyes closed. Dylan hastily starts kicking off his jeans before either of them tries to dare him to jump in too. 

“Weak,” Mitch says and there’s a gleam to his eye that says Dylan has very narrowly escaped wet jeans too. 

“Ha,” he tells them both and throws himself into the pool to the wonderful sound of Connor and Mitch both complaining about the splash. He stays down for a second and when he surfaces Connor’s already striking out for the far end with perfect dorky swim form. Mitch is paddling after him, and there’s a pair of soaking jeans draped over the edge of the pool. Which means that Connor is not wearing pants. 

Damn. 

“Didn’t think that one through,” Dylan says to them in an undertone and kicks off after them. 

It’s harder to focus on being properly horny and lovelorn when Mitch keeps trying to duck him or start splash fights and Connor is so much better than him at breath holding competitions. It’s been way too long since their last pool night. 

The end of last summer, maybe. All of them, and Matthews and his crew, and some of Connor’s work friends too, and some people Dylan doesn’t think any of them had known. He’s pretty sure he hadn’t been as happy as he is now, although he’d definitely been more drunk. It’s kind of a miracle none of them had drowned. 

When he’s so tired it’s starting to get risky to swim more he hauls himself out of the pool to shake off, spattering water everywhere and shivering at the cool night air. The moon is starting to set. It’s probably past midnight or something. 

Mitch looks a little like a drowned rat sprawled over the steps leading into the pool, so there is no damn excuse at all for how Dylan’s breath catches and suddenly his heart is beating so fast. It’s all Mitch’s grin, big and bright and happy and like… Dylan thinks the word _beautiful_ and hates himself a little. 

He’s staring, he realizes belatedly, and drags his eyes away. 

He’s not unfamiliar with wanting to kiss someone so bad he’s stupid with it. Duh, obviously, since he’s been sleeping over at Connor’s house basically since before he knew what kissing even was. He’s just… he has no defense against that someone being Mitch. 

Which he should, he realizes, scattered and frantic. Because it isn’t a new feeling. Looking at Mitch and feeling like this is not new. 

He turns away because like _fuck_ is he dealing with that right now and runs right into Connor. Because, of course he does. 

“I’m tired,” Connor says apologetically. He’s still wearing his boxers and a t-shirt that does absolutely nothing to hide his body, what with being soaked through and plastered to him. Dylan resolutely looks him in the eye. 

“Uh,” he says. 

“Me too,” Mitch calls from the pool. “Back to Dylan’s? Movie night?” 

Connor lights up, a huge tired grin that makes his eyes all squinty with happiness and Dylan is a fucking goner. 

“Yeah, guys,” he croaks and has to clear his throat. “‘Course. Just, uh, Connor, your clothes.” 

Connor looks down at them and the way water is still streaming down his pasty legs in sheets. 

“Oh,” he says.

-/-

Connor passes out nearly as soon as they get laid out in the bed and Mitch drags a blanket over him and leaves him to it. Dylan puts on a season of The Office they’ve all watched a million times and settles back against the headboard to stare up at the ceiling and just feel- content.

Mitch is staring at him. Dylan can feel it against the side of his face like a laser. 

Connor snuffles loudly. Dylan raises his eyebrows at Mitch. 

“Hey,” he says quietly, when Mitch doesn’t even blink. 

Mitch looks down at his hands and then back up and Dylan and like, Dylan’s kind of tired and feeling really good. He doesn’t want to ruin that, but it looks like something’s going on, so he just frowns at Mitch and waits. 

“Like, stop me if I'm wrong,” Mitch murmurs and Dylan doesn't know what he expects but- 

Mitch's mouth is warm and soft and gone again as soon as Dylan figures out what's happening. 

The kiss is quick and leaves the taste of chlorine on his lips when Dylan gasps for breath. Mitch is still staring at him all quiet and so unlike him and Dylan kind of hates it and also kind of wants to get his hands in Mitch's damp, tangled hair. 

“Jesus,” he croaks. “I. What?” 

Mitch smiles uncertainly. His hands are bunched in Dylan’s duvet. He looks bedraggled and pointy-faced and Dylan feels it like a punch in the dick. 

Dylan wants to kiss that smile off his stupid mouth.

“Auston said you probably just didn’t know and I should just tell you,” Mitch says quietly. “I thought I was being obvious, but, you know.” 

“Fucking Matthews,” Dylan bitches automatically. Mitch rolls his eyes and Dylan discovers that his hand has found its way to the curly, shaggy hairs at the nape of Mitch’s neck. They’re not quite dry and catch on his skin as he winds them around his fingers. He can feel how Mitch shivers when he holds on a little tighter. 

He’s dizzy. He’s not entirely sure he’s breathing. 

Mitch kisses him again, a lightning-quick brush of his mouth on Dylan’s. 

“Shut up about Auston,” he whispers hypocritically. “Kiss me.” 

“Twist my fucking arm,” Dylan complains and does as he’s told. 

Mitch’s mouth is hot and opens so easily and he loses it for a while in the cold of the air and how Mitch’s hands are so warm on his shoulders. Mitch’s tongue tentative on his lower lip and the little giggle he makes when Dylan tugs on his hair again, shivering like he can’t help himself. He might be shaking too, it’s hard to tell, he’s really, he isn’t paying attention. 

“Shh,” he murmurs against Mitch’s mouth, has to put his hand down blindly to brace himself and hopes it won’t land on Connor’s leg. It doesn’t, and he can push forward a little and lick the taste of chlorine off Mitch’s lips. 

“You shh,” Mitch counters in an undertone, pushing Dylan back a bare inch or two. His hand in Dylan’s shirt collar keeps wandering, fingers dipping under to touch his shoulder blade. 

“Don’t wake up Davo,” Dylan argues and pulls Mitch’s hair sharply in retaliation. Mitch shivers again but he’s grinning so wide his teeth are gleaming stupidly in the dim bedroom. 

“You should kiss him too,” Mitch says and like, okay. 

Dylan’s taken kicks to the dick that winded him less than that. 

“Mitch,” he croaks and Mitch laughs at him because he is a fucking prick. Dylan is pretty sure he fell in love somehow without noticing. Which, damn. Mitch is going to lord this over him for basically the rest of his natural life. Shit. 

“You wanna,” Mitch says simply and Dylan has seen him jealous - fucking _Gym Brad_ , Dylan is starting to get the sneaking suspicion he’s been a little bit totally stupid - and there’s no trace of that. “You should. He wants you to.” 

“Did you _ask_ him?” Dylan demands quickly. 

“Duh,” Mitch says. He’s so nonchalant he’s about to start inspecting his nail beds or some shit. Dylan thinks that his brain might be about to come out of his ears. 

“ _Mitchell,_ ” he hisses desperately. Mitch laughs at him again, a bubbling high-pitched noise that is in no way adorable. 

“Bro,” he says and steps in to press a kiss to the corner of Dylan’s mouth. Dylan is not happy about how much that does to settle the anxious churn in his gut. “Seriously, it’s fine. Kiss Connor. But like, where I can see?” 

Dylan makes a grumpy noise but turns his head a little to catch Mitch’s mouth more squarely. It’s a fucking revelation, being able to kiss him all the time. Like this whole new plane of existence he previously didn’t know existed has been opened. The kissing Mitch Marner dimension of his life has opened up and Dylan is like, excited to explore. 

“You’re such a fucking pervert,” he mumbles, muffled by how it’s kind of hard for him to stop kissing Mitch. Mitch giggles right into Dylan’s mouth, which is not cute at all no matter what Dylan’s dick thinks. 

“I bet he’s a good kisser,” he pulls away to goad and Dylan groans and shoves him. 

“You kiss him, then,” he says. His voice cracks. 

“Someone should probably kiss me,” Connor says and they both flinch so hard Mitch slides off the bed with a thump. 

Dylan stares. He can make out Connor’s face in the light of the streetlight through the window. He’s blinking slowly. He’s smiling a little bit. He looks rumpled and sleepy and Dylan’s heart and boner were not built to survive this. 

“I thought you were asleep,” is what Dylan’s mouth says with absolutely no input from his brain. 

“You’re loud,” Connor says and sits up. His voice is hoarse with sleep. Dylan can’t stop staring at him, even as Mitch climbs back up onto the bad and shoves him over, closer to Connor’s knees bunched up under the duvet. They’re both just looking at Connor and it’s stupidly quiet except the murmur of the television behind them. 

“Well?” Connor asks at last and he’s grinning and Dylan has no idea how he forgets that Connor’s a massive douche underneath it all, except that it’s because of things like this. When Connor’s smiling and Dylan can’t look away because he’s a dumbass and a sucker and, apparently, the world’s most oblivious moron. 

“Hurry up, fucker,” Mitch whispers in his ear and shoves him forward some more. It puts them nearly nose to nose and Mitch is giggling in his ear and he’s like, he’s pretty sure he’s about to have a heart attack and die. Jesus fucking _Christ_. 

“Hi,” Connor says, the massive dorkasaurus, and kisses him.

-/-

Dylan wakes up first because Mitch turns over in his sleep and knees Dylan right in the gut. He doesn't wake up when Dylan elbows him back but Connor makes a sleepy, displeased noise from his other side.

Dylan gets up and stumbles downstairs. His mom is sitting at the breakfast bar and smiles at him knowingly. He blearily avoids her eyes and sets the coffee maker going. 

“You have something,” she says, edging past him to put her bowl in the sink. A cold finger jabs him in the neck, right on a sore spot. She's out of the kitchen and heading for the living room before he can say anything. 

He checks his reflection in the microwave and groans at the hickey he finds. Fucking _Mitchell_. The coffee maker beeps at him and he goes to grab the OJ out of the fridge. 

He knows all of their morning beverage preferences. A mug of sugar with a splash of coffee for Mitch, a mug with a reasonable splash of creamer for him. OJ for Connor because he's a healthy nerd, but make sure Mitch has enough for how Connor will sneak sips if he can get away with it. 

He has been, Dylan realizes sourly, very _very_ stupid not to notice this whole thing. 

Mitch is mostly awake when he tromps back up the stairs, balancing all the cups. He grins at Dylan sleepily. Connor has his face pressed into Mitch's hip and he makes a piteous noise when Dylan nudges his hand with the glass of OJ but he wiggles around to take it. 

He’s adorable, a messy rumpled mess of pillow creases and greasy hair. Mitch doesn’t look any more put together and Dylan shoves his way onto the bed with his heart beating at the base of his throat. Fuck, he loves these assholes. He’s gone on them, both of them, he has no idea how he didn’t realize it sooner. 

“You left a fucking hickey, dipshit,” he bitches at Mitch, who grins at him unrepentantly around the rim of his mug. “My mom saw and now she _knows_.” 

“Oh, Mitch,” Connor mumbles, sleepily disapproving. He’s cuddled against Mitch's side and probably still mostly asleep. It’s not all that different than any of their other sleepovers, except that Dylan is horny because he's got a pretty decent guarantee kissing is going to be happening eventually, instead of just kind of wishing that it would. 

He’s already aware he’s been kind of an oblivious moron. He’s not as mad about it as he could be. 

“Your mom loves me,” Mitch counters, completely unbothered. “I’m gonna be her favorite, you watch.” 

“Whatever,” Dylan says and rolls his eyes. He’s having some trouble making himself sound serious, what with not being able to stop smiling. “Connor’s gonna be her favorite, don’t even try that shit.” 

“...Yeah,” Mitch concedes. “Fuck, can’t argue that one.” 

Connor makes a bashful little noise. Dylan pushes his arm aside to get in on the cuddling and gulps some coffee happily. 

“So, like, hey,” Mitch says. 

Dylan feels the peace of the morning crack ominously. 

“Hey,” he answers cautiously. Connor sits up a little, frowning now because he can feel the shift in atmosphere too. Mitch is suddenly sitting so stiffly it’s uncomfortable to lean against him. 

“So I have to tell you something, Davo,” Mitch says, tone upbeat in a way that’s _patently_ false. 

Dylan figures out what Mitch is about to do and hauls in a breath but keeps his mouth shut. 

“Yeah?” Connor asks. He sounds awake. Awake, and anxious. 

“I’ve been staying with Marty,” Mitch tells the air to the left of Connor’s ear. “Umm, pretty much… all the time? I’m not living at home anymore.” 

Connor is quiet for a second and then-

“You’re what?” 

Mitch shrugs. Dylan forces himself to stop chewing on the inside of his cheek before he starts bleeding. 

“So you remember last year when I was missing a lot of school?” he asks and Dylan knots his fingers in the duvet to keep from doing… something. He’s not sure what but probably something he’d almost instantly wish he hadn’t. 

“Yeah,” Connor says, and Dylan does too. He remembers Mitch telling them he was sick, and he remembers being worried and Mitch rolling his eyes about it and telling both of them to fuck off about it. 

“That was when,” Mitch says. 

He takes another sip of coffee. It’s almost comically loud. 

“And Dylan found out?” Connor asks. He sounds… quiet. Almost hurt, maybe, but Dylan can’t look at him because there’s something welling up in him he’s kind of terrified might be tears. He can barely look at Mitch. 

“My stupid drunk ass told Dylan to drop me off at Marty’s and then let him come inside,” Mitch shrugs. “He saw how cush my setup was and drew conclusions.” 

Dylan wants to contribute some _thoughts_ about letting him in being a stupid decision but he keeps his mouth shut and just nods when Connor looks at him. Mitch isn’t really looking at either of them. 

“Drunk me was just too thirsty for Dylan's dick, you know,” he says after a beat of silence and Dylan chokes on his own spit. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Mitchell,” he complains hoarsely. He's almost kind of glad that the pure emotionality of all this is killing any chance of a boner. He’s never gonna be able to look Marty in the eye again. 

Mitch snorts at him weakly. He’s grinning. It doesn’t look super convincing. 

“Why?” Connor asks at last. 

The grin falls right off Mitch’s face. 

“Well, it was, y’know.” He looks about a second from taking off out the door. Dylan kind of wants to get his arms around him and just hold him, except he’s pretty sure that would just spook him more. “My, y'know, parents and shit. Fighting. And stuff.” 

“Oh,” Connor breathes. 

“It was getting not, like, great,” Mitch tells his coffee. His thigh is tense against Dylan's leg. “And I was staying out later and shit to avoid it and Marty found me at the skate park because he lives the next street over and I fell asleep or whatever and he offered to let me stay the night.” 

“Jesus,” Dylan says. Connor's looking at him with big eyes across Mitch's bent shoulders. 

Mitch shrugs and sips his coffee. 

“Kinda just never left,” he mutters. “Marty's cool with it, I don't even gotta pay rent. I buy my own food and that's about it.” 

“Mitch,” Connor says and puts a hand on Mitch's arm. He sounds choked up. 

Mitch's hands are going white-knuckle around the mug. Dylan extracts it gently and sets it aside and then shoves Mitch over until he's sprawled in Connor's lap and climbs on top of him. 

“You're so badass,” he mumbles into Mitch's shoulder. He's clinging to Mitch with all of his limbs so he can feel how the tension just leaks out of him. “Fuck you, man, you're not allowed to be more badass than me.”

“I've always been better than you in every way,” Mitch huffs but his voice is shaky and his arms wind around him and then Connor's squirming down to get in on the cuddling action and Dylan isn't naming any names but he's pretty sure at least one of them is crying. He just squeezes Mitch even tighter and half listens to the reassuring nonsense Connor mumbles.

-/-

Dylan gets to work before Freddie does, as usual, and starts throwing things into the blender that isn’t Freddie’s right away. JT isn’t in today and so it’s just him in the shop, agonizing over whether to use blueberry or strawberry yogurt and how many raspberries is too many raspberries.

He has no idea how Freddie does this. Making up new smoothies is _work_ and he’s already spilled peach purée on his pants. 

Freddie wanders in eventually, just as he’s contemplating whether to add whey protein to his invention or not. In the end he decides the joke potential isn’t worth how bad it tastes and just scoops in some chocolate powder. 

“This is new,” Freddie says, but he sounds curious rather than upset Dylan’s poaching on his blender turf. 

“One sec,” Dylan says and hits blend. He’s nowhere near as expert as Freddie is at getting it to come out smooth but he’s pretty proud of the navy smoothie he ends up with. He pours it into a cup and offers it ceremoniously to Freddie. 

Freddie takes it and sips curiously. 

“Hey,” he says. “Nice.” 

“Thanks,” Dylan says. “I’m calling it the Davo And Marns Don’t Know How to Spell Ménage À Trois Either.” 

Freddie looks at him and then back down at his smoothie and back up at him. 

“I could blend you,” he muses. Dylan grins at him. 

“You won’t,” he counters and leans against the register. Gym Brad might come in today, it’s a Saturday. A beautiful weekend.

-/-

Marty looks up from his phone when Dylan stumbles sleepily into the kitchen.

“I should start charging you rent,” he says, smiling crookedly. Dylan squints at him, contemplates flipping him off, and decides it’ll use too much energy. Energy better spent trying to stare the coffee maker into working. Any day now his latent telekinetic abilities will activate, he’s sure of it. 

“Mitch doesn’t pay rent,” he says when that doesn’t work and he has to resort to using his hands. It still doesn’t work, even when he checks that the reservoir has water and the coffee grounds and filter fit right and flips the switch a few times. He contemplates punching it. 

“I feel like I should be giving you some kind of shovel talk,” Marty muses, reaching past him to plug the machine in. Dylan absolutely refuses to flush in embarrassment. It’s _early_. 

“Oh, yeah?” he says and leans back against the counter to wait for the coffee to percolate. “Heard Mitch call you dad the other day, glad you’re taking the position seriously or whatever.” 

Marty goes bright red. Dylan grins at him. 

“Get out of my house,” he grumbles, and wanders away as Dylan laughs.

-/-

It’s a gorgeous summer day. Dylan has never been so magnanimous and content in his entire life.

“I’m frankly amazed you know a word like magnanimous,” Freddie says, because he is an asshole and a harsher of killer positive vibes. Dylan flaps a hand at him dismissively because he is a diamond and Freddie is not going to dim his sparkle. 

“Mitch is bringing me tacos,” he informs Freddie, who rolls his eyes. 

“You’re both insufferable,” he lies. He loves them both, really. Although he does love Dylan more. 

Dylan flips him off under the counter so any potential customers won’t see and leans back to enjoy the sunlight reflecting off the scuffed linoleum tile. Which is when Mitch bursts in the door with a greasy Taco Bell bag and an expression of awe and terror like he’d just been visited by the angel Gabriel or some shit. 

“What the fuck?” Freddie asks. 

“You guys are not gonna believe this,” Mitch pants, hands on his knees. “JT’s fighting Hall in the fucking parking lot.” 

“Holy fucking shit,” says Freddie, and Dylan is vaulting the counter before Mitch has even scrambled his way back around to spill through the door. 

They make it to the parking lot just in time to see JT lay out Hall like a badass motherfucker, what Dylan is nearly certain is called an uppercut to the jaw and then Hall hitting the cement like a sack of old produce. 

One of Hall’s douchebag friends is dancing from foot to foot and there’s a can of spray paint on its side next to him, the beginnings of something probably offensive on the sidewalk. JT turns to the kid. The kid flinches and takes off running. Hall stirs, moving around fitfully on the pavement. Dylan can see that his eyes are open but it’s debatable if he’s awake. 

JT stoops to look at him for a second. 

“If you come back on the property again I will call the cops,” he says, cold as ice. 

Dylan might have a boner. He’s too numb with shock and delight to really tell. 

JT steps over Hall and heads over. He’s smiling a little bit, just with the corner of his mouth. Dylan upgrades his boner-situation from ‘possible’ to ‘increasingly likely’. 

“JT, you’re gonna get so fired,” Mitch says, voice stunned, and Dylan punches him in the arm, hard. “Ow, fucker! What was that for?” 

JT runs a hand through his sweaty hair, leaving it standing on end. He’s got the makings of a black eye already and his lip is split and dripping blood all over his rumpled company shirt and he looks basically more like a mess than Dylan had ever even imagined it was possible for him to look. He sighs heavily. 

“Yeah, well,” he says. He sounds hoarse but kind of like, _happy_. “Fuck this place. Asshole had it coming.” 

“ _Jonathan Tiberius Tavares_ ,” Mitch gasps, sounding scandalized like one of Dylan’s aunties. Freddie reaches over their heads to fistbump JT. 

“Nice,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> [employee of the month jabenn](https://thesigngirls.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/ticker_041310.jpg)


End file.
